Archive for the ‘government’ Category
Posted at 5:41 pm on January 8, 2011 by Amanda Richardson
Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama Administration
2011-01-07 05:00:01.9 GMT
By James Sterngold
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration plans to
announce today plans for an Internet identity system that will
limit fraud and streamline online transactions, leading to a
surge in Web commerce, officials said.
While the White House has spearheaded development of the
framework for secure online identities, the system led by the
U.S. Commerce Department will be voluntary and maintained by
private companies, said the officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity ahead of the announcement.
A group representing companies including Verizon
Communications Inc., Google Inc., PayPal Inc., Symantec Corp.
and AT&T Inc. has supported the program, called the National
Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, or NSTIC.
“This is going to cause a huge shift in consumer use of
the Internet,” said John Clippinger, co-director of the Law Lab
at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. “There’s going to be a huge bump and
a huge increase in the amount and kind of data retailers are
going to have.”
Most companies have separate systems for signing on to e-
mail accounts or conducting secure online transactions,
requiring that users memorize multiple passwords and repeat
steps. Under the new program, consumers would sign in just once
and be able to move among other websites, eliminating the
inconvenience that causes consumers to drop many transactions.
Fewer Passwords
For example, once the system is in place, Google would be
able to join a trusted framework that has adopted the rules and
guidelines established by the Commerce Department. From that
point, someone who logged into a Google e-mail account would be
able to conduct other business including banking or shopping
with other members of the group without having to provide
additional information or verification.
Bruce McConnell, a senior counselor for national protection
at the Department of Homeland Security, said NSTIC may lead to a
big reduction in the size of Internet help desks, which spend
much of their time assisting users who have forgotten their
passwords. Because the systems would be more secure, he said, it
may also result in many transactions that are now done on paper,
from pharmaceutical to real estate purchases, to be done online
faster and cheaper.
A draft paper outlining NSTIC was released for comment by
the White House in June.
‘Who Do You Trust?’
“NSTIC could go a long way toward advancing one of the
fundamental challenges of the Internet today, which is — Who do
you trust?” said Don Thibeau, chairman of the Open Identity
Exchange, an industry group based in San Ramon, California,
representing companies that support development of the new
framework.
“What is holding back the growth of e-commerce is not
technology, it’s policy. This gives us the rules, the policies
that we need to really move forward.”
The new system will probably hasten the death of
traditional passwords, Clippinger said. Instead, users may rely
on devices such as smartcards with embedded chips, tokens that
generate random codes or biometric devices.
“Passwords will disappear,” said Clippinger. “They’re
buggy whips. The old privacy and security conventions don’t
work. You need a new architecture.”
Secure, Efficient
Development of a more advanced security system began in
August 2004, when President George W. Bush issued a Homeland
Security Presidential Directive that required all federal
employees be given smartcards with multiple uses, such as
gaining access to buildings, signing on to government websites
and insuring that only people with proper clearances would have
access to restricted documents. The system was intended to be
more secure and more efficient.
The Obama administration advanced the process when it
issued its “Cyberspace Policy Review” in 2009. One of the 10
priorities was the security identification system.
The federal government is facilitating what it calls a
“foundational” system in two ways. It is developing the
framework for the identification plan, and it will make a large
number of government agencies, services and products available
through the secure system, from tax returns to reserving
campsites at national parks.
“Innovation is one of the key aspects here,” said Ari
Schwartz, a senior adviser for Internet policy at the Department
of Commerce. “There’s so much that could be done if we could
trust transactions more.”
Schwartz said use of the system, once companies voluntarily
choose to participate, may spur a range of efficiencies and e-
commerce similar to the way ATM machines transformed banking,
opening the way to a growing number of services little by
little.
Privacy Concerns
Civil libertarians have expressed concern that the system
may not protect privacy as well as the government is promising.
“If the concept were implemented in a perfect way it would
be very good,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for
privacy and technology at the New York-based American Civil
Liberties Union. “It’s a convenience. But having a single point
of failure may not be good for protecting privacy. The devil’s
really in the details.” He said the ACLU would “vehemently
oppose” anything that resembled a national ID card.
Aaron Brauer-Rieke, a fellow at the Center for Democracy &
Technology in Washington, a civil liberties group, said it was
important that the system would be operated by private
companies, not the government. He said he was concerned about
how the data on consumer online transactions would be used.
“New identity systems will allow moving from one site to
another with less friction and open up data flows, but might
also enable new kinds of targeted advertising,” he said. “We
have to make sure privacy doesn’t get lost in this.”
Schwartz and McConnell said the new system wouldn’t be a
national identity card and that companies, not the government,
would manage the data being passed online.
“There will not be a single data base for this
information,” McConnell said.
For Related News and Information:
Internet shopping stories: TNI INTERNET RET <GO>
Top retail stories: RTOP <GO>
Top government stories: GTOP <GO>
–Editors: Elizabeth Wollman, Joe Winski
To contact the reporter on this story:
James Sterngold in New York at +1-212-617-4946 or
jsterngold2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Scheer at +1-212-617-2358 or dscheer@bloomberg.net.
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Posted at 5:09 am on March 9, 2010 by Nat Sakimura
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (METI) launched a site called “IdeaBox“, which solicits ideas for IT Policy widely.
At the site, people can propose, discuss, and vote on policies. METI positions it as a network-based committee which is open to public. A similar site was operated last year from October to November and attracted over 1700 policy idea.
This version of IdeaBox, launched Feb 23, accepts OpenID so that one can login with the account from mixi, Yahoo! Japan, Livedoor and Google. It has various other social components so that one can also tweet about it directly from the site, bookmark it on delicous and hatena bookmark, etc. This initiative will run through March 15.
Site Address: http://open-meti.go.jp/
Tags: japan
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on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 5:09 am and is filed under Case Studies, government, News.
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Posted at 11:11 am on January 4, 2010 by jfe
22 companies including NTT docomo, KDDI, Sony, NEC, etc. have formed “ID Platform Federation Forum”. With JPY12 billion (approx. US$1.3M) in funding from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the forum members will initiate the experiment, based largely on OpenID, by the end of the year. The forum itself is operated by Nomura Research Institute (NRI).
Mobile content and commerce has flourished in Japan after the deployment of mobile browser communication for the mobile phones in Japan. As of 2008, it amounts to JPY1,352,400,000,000 (approx. US$15M) and showing 17% growth even under stagnant market conditions [1]. It has become so important that it is often said that a service will not be viable without mobile web support.
One of the key factors of its success has been attributed to the ability to identify the user reliably in the mobile carrier network. This characteristic combined with the micropayments provided by the mobile carriers enable a zero-hassle login and payment user experience. However, these features have only been available via mobile browser and not on the PC and other internet-connected devices. The forum aims to expand the success of the identification and payment service capability from the mobile arena into the wider internet, using OpenID as the underlying technology. The forum will provide insights on the implementation and recommendations obtained from the experiment back to the international community through bodies such as the OpenID Foundation. Currently, the forum expects the feedback to impact the Mobile Profile of OpenID, the Attribute schema, and Level of Protection of the Relying Parties.
Chairman
Prof. Aida, Tokyo University
Vice-chair
Prof. Morikawa, Tokyo University
Secretariat
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.
Members
Access Co. Ltd.
KDDI Corporation
Nextwave Co. Ltd.
NEC Corporation
Nihon Unisys Ltd.
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.
NTT Comunications
NTT docomo Inc.
Fujitsu
Hitachi Ltd.
Softbank BB Corp.
Sony Corporation
Willcom Inc.
in addition, there are observers.
[1] Source: Ministry of Internal Affaires and Communication (http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/02ryutsu04_000016.html)
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on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 11:11 am and is filed under Foundation, government, News.
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Posted at 11:08 am on by jfe
In response to the newly enacted “Fund Transfer and Payment Services Act of Japan”, the OpenID Foundation Japan has announced the formation of the “Payment Working Group (WG)” on December 8, 2009. The Payment WG consists of 14 member companies and aims to create whitepapers on ”Guidelines for Secure Management of Information”, “Guidelines for Outsourcing” and “Guidelines for Identity Verification and Authentication” as well as the best practice and profiling document for implementing fund transfer and payment service built on OpenID.
Currently, only depository financial institutions such as banks are allowed to provide fund transfer service. The situation is going to change by this act taking effect in 2010. After that time, anybody who complies with certain conditions can start providing funds transfer service. The aim of this WG is to promote OpenID as the foundation for such services by establishing industry backed recommendations on profiles of OpenID.
Members of Payment WG are:
Chairman
Professor Nobuhiko Sugiura, Chuo Graduate School of Strategic Management
Secretariat
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd
Members
SBI holdings, Inc
NEC BIGLOBE, Ltd
NTT DoCoMo
IncNTT DATA Corporation
KDDI Corporation
GMO Payment Gateway, Inc
Seven Bank, Ltd
SOFTBANK PAYMENT SERVICE Corporation
NEC Corporation
Nomura Research Institute
Ltdmixi, Inc
Yahoo Japan Corporation
Rakuten, Inc
Observer
Prepaid Cards/Vouchers Issue Association
To join this WG, one should contact OpenID Foundation Japan at
TEL：(+81) 3-6274-1451 E-mail：contact@openid.or.jp http://www.openid.or.jp
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Posted at 1:50 pm on December 16, 2009 by Brian Kissel
It’s been an exciting year. A number of initiatives that were started in 2008 had a direct impact on the success of the platform in the past year, so many thanks to all the organizations and individuals who have contributed. Here’s a quick summary of the state of OpenID.
- There are over 1 billion OpenID enabled accounts from the following providers worldwide:
- US: AOL, Blogger, Flickr, Google, LiveJournal, MySpace, Verisign, WordPress, and Yahoo
- Europe: France Telecom, GMX/Web.DE, Hyves, Netlog, and Telecom Italia
- Japan: Livedoor, mixi, NEC Biglobe, Rakuten, and Yahoo! Japan
- There are over 9 million websites utilizing OpenID for registration and login on some portion of their websites across a wide range of organizations including Sears, Kmart, Universal Music Group (200+ Interscope, Geffen, A&M labels and artists), FoxNews, EMI, TwitterFeed, RedPlum, Savings.com, DC Shoes, CitySearch, Zappos, Nike, Microsoft, Mint, Nokia, Random House, Sony BMG, Café Press, TweetDeck, ViewPoints, Qype, Scout24 (Deutsche Telecom), Avro, Associated Northcliffe Digital, Smart.fm, Hokkaido Television Broadcasting, OnGen, 2-han.net, Nikko Hotels, ClipCast, Facebook etc.
- Microsoft, NTT Docomo, PBS, and PayPal have also announced plans to OpenID-enable their users adding hundreds of millions of additional OpenID enabled accounts
- Several organizations are using OpenID internally for federated ID management: Amazon, Japan Airlines International, National 4-H, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and PBS
- The US federal government has announced its intention to deploy OpenID on federal websites. During two separate meetings with Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO, he explained that a major priority for the federal government is transparency and “citizen engagement.” Accordingly, the government is aggressively pursuing open standard technologies that enable and support these objectives. At the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC, the General Services Administration and several government agencies announced their plans to adopt OpenID as part of the White House’s Open Government Initiative. This announcement followed several months of research and discussion between the OpenID Foundation, OIDF member companies, the GSA, NIST, OMB, the InfoCard Foundation, and various government agencies. The Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) committee of the GSA published its Identity Scheme Adoption Process, Trust Framework Provider Adoption Process, and OpenID 2.0 Government Profile documents over the last several months. Initial identity providers include Yahoo, Google, AOL, Verisign, and PayPal who are undergoing certification processes defined in the TFPAP. The first wave of federal websites to accept these identity providers will include the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and related agencies.
- A large number of market leading web platform providers have also integrated OpenID including Disqus, Drupal, GetSatisfaction, Joomla, JS-Kit, Kickapps, Movable Type, Plone, Pluck, TypePad, UserVoice, Viewpoints, WetPaint, WordPress, and Zend.
- Shibboleth, an identity management system used by thousands of research institutions has announced that Shibboleth V2.X will integrate OpenID support. The U.S. deployment of Shibboleth, InCommon, is a community of more than 4 million researchers, students, staff, and faculty across more than 180 institutions. The OpenID Foundation worked closely with InCommon/ Shibboleth in developing trust frameworks for the US Government OpenID deployment. Another example of how the OpenID Foundation and members are collaborating with a number of identity initiatives.
- The OpenID Foundation and member organizations continue to collaborate closely with other user managed identity open standards including OAuth, Portable Contacts, and Activity Streams to provide website operators and end users with even richer and mutually beneficial web experiences. We believe that this decentralized, open-standards-based approach is ultimately in the best interest of website operators and end users alike, where both collaboration and competition can drive innovation, choice, and widespread adoption across multiple geographies/nationalities, application areas, and demographic segments.
Beyond these broad market developments and milestones, the following summarizes some specfic accomplishments in various categories:
- OpenID Foundation Organizational Developments. As we mentioned at the end of 2008 and in early 2009, a lot of attention was required to develop an organizational capability commensurate with the growing role and needs of the Foundation.
- At the end of 2008 we completed our first open board elections for 2009 and subsequently elected an executive committee.
- We were fortunate to be able to hire Don Thibeau as our new Executive Director. Don was formerly VP Business Development at TransUnion and Executive Vice President at Qsent
- We retained Global Inventures as our Foundation platform infrastructure partner. Global Inventures manages the back office operations of over 20 organizations including HDMI, HomePlug Network, Open Grid Network, PC Gaming Alliance, SD Card Association, and the ZigBee Alliance
- We established a 2009 operational and financial plan, balanced costs and income even with the unplanned costs for US Government OpenID pilot programs
- We added Nat Sakimura as International Liaison to OpenID Foundation Board Executive Committee
- The bylaws and IPR agreements were updated
- We added three new sustaining members: PayPal, Facebook, and Booz Allen Hamilton
- We established the User Interface, OpenID/OAuth Hybrid, and Contract Exchange working groups
- The board developed a list of key priorities for 2010
- Market Outreach. A key goal for 2009 was to increase awareness, adoption and usage of OpenID.
- OIDF’s Executive Director and several board members represented OpenID with analysts like Gartner and led a new industry collaboration with key identity ecosystems organizations like InCommon, Kantara, Oasis, and others at key public and private sector events.
- We participated in several industry events including Internet Identity Workshops, RSA Conference, Transparency Camp, Government 2.0, and others
- Yahoo and Facebook each hosted and led User Experience Summits at their respective facilities
- Yahoo held an OpenID Summit just before Internet Identity Workshop
- BBC and JanRain hosted a Content Provider Committee meeting in NYC and several members participated in an Online Retailer Advisory Committee session
- Sears, Yahoo, and JanRain are scheduling the next UX Summit at Sears Usability Lab in February in Chicago
- We executed two significant updates to the OIDF website led by Chris Messina with support from Global Inventures and JanRain
- Several individual community candidates for the 2010 board elections represent experience with broader industry and geographic coverage – Media (NY Times, NPR, PBS), Commerce (Sears), International (Deutsche Telekom, Switzerland, Estonia, Netherlands, India, etc.)
- Federal Government. While this opportunity wasn’t on our roadmap at the beginning of the year, the Foundation responded quickly and aggressively to requests from the government to adopt OpenID for use on federal government websites.
- OIDF’s Board of Directors responded to the invitation of the US CIO, Vivek Kundra, and significantly influenced the government’s plans for technical and policy interoperability of internet identity.
- We worked with GSA, NIST, OMB, NIH, HHA, CIT, and ICF to deploy pilots for three federal government agencies
- 5 industry leading identity providers are supporting the OIDF’s training and technical assistance for testing a government-wide technology profile for OpenID in pilot applications in support of the US NIH iTrust Program: Google, Yahoo, AOL, Verisign, and PayPal
- OIDF’s Chairman, Executive Director and outreach committee members were quoted in numerous trade, government and mainstream press regarding the US GSA’s “Open Identity for Open Government Initiative”
- The OIDF is evaluating mechanisms to deliver the organizational capability required to provide ongoing OP certification services for the federal government and eventually other commercial applications
- OP Progress. All the major OpenID Providers have significantly improved the richness and usability of their offerings (OP capability summary to be published shortly)
- MySpace became an OpenID provider
- Facebook became an OpenID relying party
- PayPal became and OP for the federal government pilot
- Google converted over 1 million Google Apps clients into OpenID providers
- Microsoft committed to becoming an OpenID Provider in 2010
- AOL committed to migrating to OpenID 2.X in 2010
- Security Progress. Monitoring and continuous improvement in safety and security of the OpenID platform continues to be an area of emphasis for the Foundation. The following summarizes some important developments during the period.
- Andrew Nash of PayPal was selected to head the Security Committee. Other members include: Eric Sachs, Nat Sakimura, Tony Nadalin, David Recordon, Eddy Nigg, John Bradley, Nate Klingenstein, and Philip Hallam-Baker
- Working groups were formed and specification development has progressed for both the PAPE and Contract Exchange OpenID extensions
- Per the Federal Government section above, the OpenID Foundation and Information Card Foundation have been working with the GSA, NIST, and others on trust and security frameworks for federal government deployment pilots. It is expected that the trust frameworks and certification programs developed for this application will be extensible to other commercial and private sector applications where enhanced security requirements are relevant.
As you can see, the rate of progress has accelerated in 2009 and we expect it to continue in 2010. We thank member organizations and individuals for their input and contributions, and look forward to even more support in the coming year. Remember you can contribute via mailing lists, technical working groups, and standing committees so please stay or get involved to help us realize the full potential of the OpenID platform.
Best wishes for a great holiday season and new year.
Brian Kissel
Chairman, OpenID Foundation
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Posted at 4:11 am on September 9, 2009 by Chris Messina
Chris Messina is a community board member of the OpenID Foundation, long time advocate for citizens of the web, and prolific blogger on all things “open”.
Today in collaboration with Vivek Kundra, the nation’s first CIO, we are announcing a pilot program intended to enable individual citizens to login to government websites with their existing accounts — without revealing their password or personally identifying information — using OpenID and InfoCard technologies.
This is an important step in the Obama administration’s commitment to open, transparent, and participatory government.
First, it acknowledges and embraces existing, open technologies, rather than inventing their own (or worse, hiring independent contractors to do the same).
Second, this comes at a critical time in the history of OpenID, of which there are now well over 500 million OpenID-capable accounts in the wild, (even if few people realize that they already have one!). Given the wide deployment of this technology, it only makes sense that the government should leverage this wide potential userbase to facilitate interaction with its citizens.
Third, it is critical for the government and government agencies to develop solutions and adopt technologies that make it easier for modern citizens to engage with them, to exist competently alongside other social networking websites.
In other words, by embracing OpenID (and InfoCard), the government is helping to further establish the value of owning one’s own identity, and of having convenient, consistent, and privacy-protecting mechanisms in place to enhance and enable participation.
To make this more real, consider booking a campground on a state park’s website: do you really want to create yet another account (that you’ll probably never use again) just to reserve a campsite? Probably not.
To make this more personal: imagine searching the National Institute of Health’s website for information for a loved one who was recently diagnosed with cancer. You’d want the technology to get out of the way and serve your goals — who’d want to register for a new account when you just want to save your search progress (say, from a library kiosk) and resume it later (i.e. from home)?
It’s cases like this that begin to tease at the value of using existing accounts for low-security government interactions (at least to start). Like email, I expect to see this start with a slow, gradual adoption, and overtime, gain momentum and relevance.
To find out more about this pilot program, read the full press release and visit our OpenID for Government page.
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Posted at 4:10 am on by Don Thibeau
Gov 2.0 Conference - Washington, D.C. — September 9, 2009 — Ten industry leaders — Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo and Wave Systems — announced today they will support the first pilot programs designed for the American public to engage in open government — government that is transparent, participatory, and collaborative. This open identity initiative is a key step in President Obama’s memorandum to make it easy for individuals to register and participate in government websites — without having to create new usernames and passwords. Additionally, members of the public will be able to fully control how much or how little personal information they share with the government at all times.
These companies will act as digital identity providers using OpenID and Information Card technologies. The pilot programs are being conducted by the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and related agencies. The participating companies are being certified under non-discriminatory open trust frameworks developed under collaboration between the OpenID Foundation (OIDF) and the Information Card Foundation (ICF) and reviewed by the federal government.
“We are pleased with the caliber of organizations who have signed on to be active participants in this initiative,” said Judy Spencer, Co-Chair of the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management Steering Committee (ICAM). “They represent some of the best thinking and innovation in the private sector. We also value the ongoing support and guidance of the OpenID Foundation and the Information Card Foundation in facilitating digital identity for open government.”
Since President Obama’s open government memorandum earlier this year, federal agencies have been embracing Web 2.0 technologies to interact with members of the public via means such as blogs, surveys, social networks, and video casts. Today’s announcement paves the way for individuals to use these new services and customize their experience on government websites without needing to reveal any personally identifiable information – including passwords. It also takes advantage of best practices from the private sector for protecting privacy and security, including making it easier for citizens to have pseudonymous interactions with government sites when desired
In essence, this initiative will help transform government websites from basic “brochureware” into interactive resources, saving individuals time and increasing their direct involvement in governmental decision making. OpenID and Information Card technologies make such interactive access simple and safe. For example, in the coming months the NIH intends to use OpenID and Information Cards to support a number of services including customized library searches, access to training resources, registration for conferences, and use of medical research wikis, all with strong privacy protections.
Dr. Jack Jones, NIH CIO and Acting Director, CIT, notes, “As a world leader in science and research, NIH is pleased to participate in this next step for promoting collaboration among Assurance Level 1 applications. Initially, the NIH Single Sign-on service will accept credentials as part of an “Open For Testing” phase, with full production expected within the next several weeks. At that time, OpenID credentials will join those currently in use from InCommon, the higher education identity management federation, as external credentials trusted by NIH.”
In digital identity systems, certification programs that enable a site — such as a government agency — to trust the identity, security, and privacy assurances from an identity provider are called trust frameworks. The OIDF and ICF have worked closely with the federal government to meet the security, privacy, and reliability requirements set forth by the ICAM Trust Framework Adoption Process (TFAP), published on the IDManagement.gov website. By adopting OpenID and Information Card technologies, government agencies can cost effectively serve their constituencies in a more personalized and user friendly way.
“It’s good to see government taking a leadership role in moving identity technology forward. It’s also good to see government working with experts from private sector and especially with the Information Card Foundation and the OpenID Foundation because identity is not a technical phenomenon — it’s a social phenomenon. And technological support for identity requires the participation of a broad community and of representatives of government who define the legal framework within which identity will operate,” said Bob Blakley, Vice President and Research Director, Identity and Privacy Strategies, Burton Group. “Today’s announcement supplies the most important missing ingredient of the open identity infrastructure, mainly the trust framework. Without a trust framework it’s impossible to know whether a received identity is reliable.”
Under the OIDF and ICF’s open trust frameworks, any organization that meets the technical and operational requirements of the framework will be able to apply for certification as an identity provider (IdP). These IdPs can then supply authentication credentials on behalf of their users. For some activities these credentials will enable the user to be completely anonymous; for others they may require personal information such as name, email address, age, gender, and so on. Open trust frameworks enable citizens to choose the identity technology, identity provider, and credential with which they are most comfortable, while enabling government websites to accept and trust these credentials. This approach leads to better innovation and lower costs for both government and citizens.
“Open government cannot and will not compromise either security or privacy,” said Drummond Reed, Executive Director of the Information Card Foundation. “By working with private industry, the U.S. government is harnessing the innovation and efficiencies of the open market and letting citizens choose their preferred means of engaging with government agencies.”
“This is a significant leap in participatory democracy,” said Don Thibeau, executive director of the OpenID Foundation. “Following President Obama’s directive, our government has worked with market leading companies to leverage modern, open standards to engage with its citizens. When the government adopts open identity standards and trust frameworks, the result is better service, more transparency, and greater accountability.”
· · ·
Industry Leaders Weigh in on the Open Identity for Open Government Initiative
“The joint work between the US Government, OpenID Foundation, and Information Card Foundation to enable the use of commercial identities on government web sites is groundbreaking,” said Kim Cameron, Microsoft’s Chief Identity Architect. “These pilot projects will provide invaluable insights about how these systems are actually used in practice, enabling people to build upon this seminal work both for government and private sector sites, further extending the reach of interoperable Internet identity.”
“Information Cards and OpenID technologies have the potential to improve consumer experiences online tremendously,” said Michael Barrett, Chief Information Security Officer for PayPal. “As an identity provider, we believe that this technology has enormous potential to improve the safety of Internet commerce.”
“The ability to enable individualized interaction through tools and technologies that citizens use every day represents a tremendous opportunity for federal agencies with citizen-facing missions,” said Lloyd Howell, Sr. Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton. “Because this Trust Framework can be applied with a common experience across all federal websites, every agency can take advantage of this approach to improve operational effectiveness and reduce costs.”
“Equifax brings unmatched expertise in identity management and verification to the open trust framework initiative,” said Ron Carpinella, vice president of Identity Management, Equifax. “The opportunity to deliver our proven technology and its privacy features to the government sector is truly exciting. This pilot program is the catalyst that will enable better, more secure, and user-centric capabilities in government and industry digital services.”
“Open standards like OpenID create a better Internet for everyone. As the largest single provider of OpenID accounts, Yahoo! is eager to pave the way for further OpenID adoption. That is why Yahoo! has led the effort to make OpenID easy to use and understand for consumers around the world. And by meeting the government’s standards for security and reliability, we believe OpenID will continue to be the most convenient and trustworthy open identity standard on the Web.” said Allen Tom, Membership Architect, Yahoo!.
“VeriSign is excited to be a part of the U.S. Government’s initiative to further President Obama’s call for a more open and participatory government,” said Nicolas Popp, vice president of Innovation at VeriSign. “Based on our experience with bringing trust to the Internet, we look forward to playing a role in the development of an identity trust framework that will enable citizens to communicate with the government openly with confidence.”
“AOL has always focused on helping consumers get safe and easy access to the content and services they want online. That’s why we’re proud to be part of the government’s pilot program to allow citizens to access government websites using identities they already own. As an early supporter of OpenID, we recognize the tremendous value this service can offer consumers and applaud the government for its vision,” says George Fletcher, Chief Architect for Identity Services at AOL.
“As a champion of consumer privacy and a long-time provider of identity management, we at Acxiom are privileged to provide identity technologies to this effort,” said Tim Christin, senior vice president of Acxiom’s Identity Solutions group. “U.S. citizens can now be assured an easier and safer Internet experience with the government. ”
“It’s exciting to see the United States government embracing innovative web-based technologies to serve its citizens in a more convenient, secure, and personalized way,” said Brian Kissel, CEO of JanRain and Chairman of the OpenID Foundation. “This further validates the broad range of applications and market segments where OpenID is having a positive impact on users’ web experiences.”
“The open identity initiative illustrates how identity technologies have moved beyond theory to solve real-world challenges and highlights the potential for opportunities in the private, as well as the public sector,” noted Jeff Carter, CEO of Azigo. “Hosted Information Cards let web sites issue Information Cards quickly and easily — a key step forward for the future of digital identities.”
“Open Government represents a significant step forward in modernizing our nation’s democratic system.” said Patrick Harding, CTO of Ping Identity and ICF board member. “We are thrilled to be involved in establishing the Internet identity security and privacy standards necessary to ensuring the long term success of using 2.0 innovations to improve governmental transparency and encourage citizen involvement.”
“Citi is a huge proponent of driving alignment within the public sector to collaborate in the development of accepted standards that promote interoperability for common processes.” says Hilary L. Ward, Director, Identity Business Manger, Citi. “We are excited to be a part of this initiative and being able to bring our innovation and expertise to this program. This is a tremendous first step in creating a broader identity and trust framework that can work across applications, communities and borders to the benefit of citizens everywhere.”
“Privo is pleased to be an identity provider under the open trust frameworks to support access by any citizen who desires to interact with participating government sites, while still protecting their identity,” said Denise Tayloe, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Privo. “We see tremendous parallels between the work we do with children and parents to verify and protect their identities using our existing, and available, Identity Card technology and the work the government is doing to interact with its citizens in a safe online environment.”
“Opening the U.S. government to direct citizen involvement using OpenID and Information Card identities is a major step for the trust fabric of the Internet”, said Steven Sprague, President and CEO, Wave Systems Corp. “Wave is innovating ways for both these technologies to take advantage of trusted computing infrastructure so OpenID and Information Card users can enjoy unparalleled access and interaction with government websites with maximum security and privacy.”
“Interoperable and trusted identities are foundations to building a smarter planet that includes the systems that run, the way we live and work as a society. In order to build such a smarter planet, it is important for governments, communities and industries to work together in building a smarter planet.” said Nataraj Nagaratnam, IBM’s Chief Identity Architect. “This initiative around pilot projects that bring these three groups together is a significant milestone in the journey of identity metasystem, and in the evolution of open, interoperable identities”
“The US Government taking real steps to adopt open technologies has the potential to enhance and simplify citizen engagement,” said Chris Messina, an advocate of open technologies and CEO of Citizen Agency, LLC. “This effort sets in motion a shift in how individuals can interact with the public sector and makes progress on the Obama administration’s promise for a more open, transparent, and participatory government.”
“Information Card technology and OpenID specifications have co-evolved at the Internet Identity Workshop since 2005. The launch of this open trust framework is an exciting major development in the evolution of an open identity layer for the Web,” said Kaliya Hamlin of Identitywoman.net and co-producer and facilitator of the Internet Identity Workshop.
“The synchronicity between the U.S. and Japanese government is quite interesting,” said Nat Sakimura, Senior Researcher at Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. “The Japanese government is going forward with DigitalCivil Life Project that also embraces open identity systems and trust frameworks. We believe they are showing the changing tide towards more open and citizen centric government throughout the world. Today’s announcement by the U.S. government is an important step towards it.”
Media Contact:
Liz O’Donnell
617-365-7172
Liz3point0@aol.com
Tags: gov 2.0, gov20s, open identity
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