ICF and OIDF to Present Open Trust Framework at OASIS Identity Management 2009 Conference

ICF Executive Director Drummond Reed and OpenID Foundation Executive Director Don Thibeau will present the foundation’s joint Open Trust Framework at the OASIS Identity Management 2009 conference tomorrow at the NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The theme of the conference is Transparent Government: Risks, Rewards, and Repercussions.

The Open Trust Framework, summarized in the OIDF/ICF joint white paper Open Trust Frameworks for Open Government, is a mechanism that enables relying parties (the websites and services that accept open identity credentials such as OpenID or Information Cards from individuals) to verify that identity providers (the third parties providing such credentials on behalf of the individual) are certified to provide those credentials at the level of assurance (LOA) the relying party requires.

In the case of U.S. government, for example, there are four LOAs defined by NIST and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), each with its own level of identity proofing, security, and privacy requirements. With the Open Trust Framework, U.S. government websites will be able to determine if a particular identity credential meeting the ICAM OpenID 2.0 profile or IMI Information Card 1.0 profile at a particular LOA was issued by an identity provider certified to meet the U.S. government requirements at that LOA.

The first U.S. government agency pilot programs of the use of OpenID and Information Card identity credentials and the Open Trust Framework were announced on September 9th by the OIDF and ICF at the Gov 2.0 Summit conference. Following are links to coverage of this announcement:

• PC Magazine: Tech Firms Rally Around OpenID for Govt. Access
• PC World: Tech Vendors Line Up Behind Open Government
• Information Week: Gov 2.0: Ten Companies Bring Open Identity To Government
• Federal Computer Week: Open Identity Groups Collaborate with Federal Agencies
• eWeek: Tech Giants Join Open Identity Partnership with Government
• Fast Company: Government Experimenting With Identity Technologies
• OhMyGov: White House Pushes Open Identity Initiative at Gov 2.0
• Comliance Management News: OpenID Federated Identity Framework Set for .gov Authentication Pilot