Spotlight on Kantara Member UnboundID

In this edition of Spotlight we are pleased to tell readers more about Kantara Initiative Member UnboundID, their unique role in IdM, and why they joined the Kantara Initiative Member community.

Tell us about UnboundID, why was the service/product created, and how is it providing real-world value today?

The founders of UnboundID initially worked together at Sun Microsystems on Enterprise Identity Management products. When Sun Microsystems closed its Austin-based directory services product division, the founders formed UnboundID in December 2007 with the goal of creating a consumer identity management stack of products. Current UnboundID solutions include the Identity Data Platform, which enables companies to dynamically store, manage, protect, and share customer identity data in real-time across cloud, mobile, and social applications, and the Privacy Suite, which allows companies to operationalize privacy policies by gatekeeping data access and automating the flow of customer consent. Our focus is on helping companies with greater than one million consumer identities manage identity and privacy.

Tell us where UnboundID is envisioned to be in the next 5-10 years?

We have a vision of the future that we call the Identity Economy – a titanic shift in the way that consumers will interact with products and the companies that supply them. The Identity Economy is fueled by consumer identity data, with that data acting as a currency and a product. In the future, consumers will trade their identity data for products and services, and vendors set a value on the data in order to share or exchange it to benefit their business. But the Identity Economy can only be successful if there is an environment of trust based on transparency, control and choice for consumers about how their data is used. The role of UnboundID is to build products that enable service providers to ethically manage consumer data, with the participation of the consumer.

Tell us why UnboundID joined Kantara Initiative.

UnboundID views the Kantara Initiative as a vital part of building the trust framework required for the Identity Economy. The Kantara Initiative is part of a whole ecosystem where consumers and vendors can all benefit.

Anything else we should know about UnboundID, the service/product, or even your own experiences?

UnboundID recently launched our new Privacy Suite in April of 2013 – this solution helps service providers enable their consumers with real informed consent and the enforcement of that consent during data usage.