Blogs

Although a formal announcement from OASIS is not expected until next week, the Identity Metasystem Interoperability Version 1.0 specification was approved as an OASIS standard today by a unanimous vote of the OASIS members participating in the vote. According to IMI Technical Committee editor Mike Jones of Microsoft, "This is a wonderful endorsement of the work of the IMC TC. The standard benefitted substantially from the input received during the process. Numerous clarifications were incorporated as a result, while still maintaining compatibility with the earlier Identity Selector Interoperability Profile V1.5 (ISIP 1.5) specification."

Mr. Jones acknowledged this was a broad community effort, spanning many individuals and organizations. Many Information Card Foundation members were involved, and others are currently implementing products and services based on the specification. Said ICF Chairman Paul Trevithick of Azigo, "Reaching the level of an OASIS Standard is a major milestone for the Information Card community. It attests to the maturity of the IMI 1.0 specification. Now ICF can place more emphasis on the other elements necessary for widespread adoption, including reference implementations, best practices, trust frameworks, and market education."

The European e-Identity Management Association (EEMA) held its annual conference in London last week, and Information Cards were a major topic. At the opening session on Thursday, 25 June, Kim Cameron of Microsoft gave an overview of claims-based identity and the role of Information Cards in a claims-based identity metasystem. He also mentioned his new white paper, Proposal for a Common Identity Framework: A User-Centric Identity Metasystem, co-authored with Reinhard Posch (federal CIO for the Austrian government since 2001) and Kai Rannenberg (the T-Mobile Chair for Mobile Business and Multilateral Security at Goethe University Frankfurt).

The second day of the conference featured an Identity Metasystems Roundtable, moderated by John Bradley, ICF Fellow and OASIS IDtrust Steering Committee Member, Tony Nadalin of Microsoft, and Drummond Reed, ICF Executive Director. It was an in-depth discussion covering many current topics in the Information Card and IMI ecosystem, including:

Information Card Foundation member Acxiom® Corporation (NASDAQ: ACXM), a global leader in interactive marketing and risk mitigation services, announced a beta program for the Acxiom Identity Card. This program uses Information Card technology to enable retail merchants, corporations, financial institutions and other organizations to offer a privately branded identity card to their customers.

"Businesses should benefit with a decrease in internal consumer authentication and fraud detection costs if they encourage their customers to adopt a digital identity card," says Tim Christin, senior vice president of Acxiom's risk mitigation division. "And in turn, their customers should benefit by the streamlined online experience with a single sign-on system, the elimination of user names and passwords, and the reduced risk of identity fraud."

A digital identity card allows consumers to establish new online accounts and log in to existing accounts with a unique, encrypted identity that is stored on the consumer's personal computer. This is the digital equivalent of a privately branded identity card that is typically carried in a person's wallet.

The Spring 2009 Internet Identity Workshop concluded three days of intensive discussion of key Internet identity technologies last week. Following an introduction to Information Cards on the first morning by ICF Executive Director Drummond Reed, sessions on Information Card technology were held throughout the week.

Mr. Reed and Kynetx CTO Phil Windley held two sessions on action cards, the new application of Information Card technology to augmented web browsing (for more details, see the ICF white paper, The Information Card Ecosystem). Mr. Windley demonstrated how an action card rule could be written to add a real-time Twitter search to a Google search results page. "With the Kynetx Rules Language (KRL), any Information Card can be used to share user context across two or more sites in ways that provide immediate user value", said Mr. Windley.

Mr. Windley also announced that Kynetx is starting a limited beta of its developer tools program. Interested developers should contact him directly.

The Information Card Foundation is pleased to welcome the newly-formed German Language Chapter to the Foundation. The chapter facilitates activities and discussions about Information Cards among German-speaking people, primarily from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

The first meeting of the chapter was held this week at the European Identity Conference in Munich, and was enthusiastically attended by approximately 25 people representing at least 17 companies and organizations. 7 presentations were made about Information Card projects happening in the region.

The German Language Chapter hosts its own website at http://informationcard.de/.

Willkommen!

Kuppinger Cole, organizers of the European Identity Conference 2009 (EIC) taking place from May 5-8 in Munich, Germany, announced today that they have conferred the European Identity Award for Best New or Improved Standard to the Information Card Foundation.

The award was granted for the ICF's contribution to standardizing Information Cards as a core technology for the future of identity management. It was accepted by ICF board members Paul Trevithick, Axel Nennker, Kim Cameron, and Mike Jones, all of whom are attending the EIC.

"On behalf of the Information Card Foundation, I want to thank Kuppinger Cole and the EIC for this honor", said Drummond Reed, ICF Executive Director. "The purpose of ICF is to bring an open community together to advance Information Card standards, implementations, and practices around the world, and this is a sign we are making real progress."

Kuppinger Cole also issued every registered user of the EIC conference a managed Information Card that can be used to enter the conference portal at www.kuppingercole.com. These cards were issued using the Webcard Loyalty portal service provided by ICF member fun communications.

The EIC also hosted in the inaugural meeting of the German Chapter of the ICF. Further reporting on that meeting will be posted once the EIC has concluded.

SPECIAL TO RSA-San Francisco-April 20, 2009-The Information Card Foundation (ICF) announced today the first seven Information Card projects to be featured on the new ICF website. The new site will be unveiled at a presentation at the RSA Security conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco today. The announcement will be part of the Harnessing the Power of Digital Identity workshop the ICF is co-sponsoring with the Liberty Alliance on Monday, April 20. The presentation will be held at 2:15 p.m. at Esplanades 301&303 ("Purple 301&303"), Moscone Center.

The seven projects are actual examples of how the Information Card ecosystem simplifies and standardizes identity-based transactions regardless of the site, domain, application, or information involved.

"Just as people needed to first see a Web browser to understand what it could do, now they need to see an Information Card selector to understand its potential," said Drummond Reed, Interim Executive Director of the ICF. "Information cards have moved beyond theory to solve real-world challenges."

Information Cards bring a familiar offline paradigm-the cards you carry in your wallet-to the online world. They work with a new software tool called a selector that operates as an extension to your Web browser. Selectors are available today from ICF members Azigo, Microsoft, and Novell, as well as from several open source projects.

The seven projects to be featured include:

SPECIAL TO RSA-San Francisco-April 20, 2009-At the RSA Security conference beginning today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Information Card Foundation (ICF) announced publication of a new white paper on Information Cards by noted industry analyst Craig Burton. The Information Card Ecosystem: The Fundamental Leap from Cookies and Passwords to Cards and Selectors explains why the Information Card metaphor is being recognized across the industry as the future of digital identity both in the enterprise and on the Internet.

"This is the first analysis of digital identity that explains why Information Cards are an inevitable next step in the evolution of relationships on the Internet, just as cookies were in the 1990's," said Mr. Burton, principal analyst at Burtonian and former CTO of Novell. "Cookies solved the problem of how a user could share information across the pages of the same website. For example, without them, e-commerce shopping carts would not work. Information Cards solve the next wider problem: how a user can safely share private information across completely different websites of their choosing."

The paper uses the common example of booking travel. Today, a traveller must re-enter their trip details into every travel site they visit. Even though that travel site may set a cookie to recognize the returning user, that's all the cookie can "remember". With Information Cards, the traveller will be able enter the trip details once, then use an Information Card to securely and privately share it with each travel site they wish in one click.

There's only one IIW. I don't know of anything like it for any other industry. It is THE open space conference for the community - the most critical event to attend if you either want to know where Internet identity is going -- or change where it is going. The next one is May 18-20 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Early registration is especially important this year - register before April 1 to secure a special price.

The Information Card Foundation is one of the sponsors this year, and our members and contributors will be there in force, so we look forward to you joining us there.

The Information Card Foundation announced today that Charles Andres, Executive Director of the Foundation for its first 18 months, is stepping down to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Andres states, “My goal was to get the Foundation off the ground with the critical mass of high-quality individuals and companies needed for success. Having achieved that, it is time for me to move beyond the neutral role of Executive Director. The global business opportunities for Information Cards touch every market.”

Under his tenure, the ICF grew to 35 member companies, established five working groups, and developed the ICF Claims Catalog. Mr. Andres was also instrumental in organizing the Harnessing the Power of Digital Identity seminar to be held April 20 at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, which the ICF is co-sponsoring.

ICF board member Drummond Reed is taking a leave of absence from the board to assume the role of Interim Executive Director. A founder of Cordance Corporation, former VP Infrastructure at Parity Communications, co-chair of the XRI and XDI Technical Committees at OASIS, and a founding board member of the OpenID Foundation and XDI.org, Mr. Reed has been involved in Internet identity infrastructure and services for over 15 years.

“I look forward to quickly building on the foundation Charles and the ICF founding members have established. Information Cards, selectors, and the Identity Metasystem represent an opportunity for convergence across all Internet identity protocols; the faster we can foster adoption the sooner we will harvest the personal, social, and commercial benefits of a ubiquitous Internet identity layer.”

Mr. Reed can be contacted in his new role at director ---@--- informationcard.net.