Identity management defined

The foundation for security and enterprise management

There's an important new document available in the field of "user-centric" identity, and it's one I think we should all read.

Originally published in The Future of Identity in the Information Society: Challenges and Opportunities (edited by Kai Rannenberg, Denis Royer and André Deuker) this long paper/short book is called "The Proposal for a Common Identity Framework" and is a joint effort of Kim Cameron (Microsoft's identity architect), Reinhard Posch (federal CIO for the Austrian government) and Kai Rannenberg (who holds the T-Mobile chair for Mobile Business and Multilateral Security at Goethe University Frankfurt).

The paper is often quite dense and (as befits a paper written in English by a Canadian, an Austrian and a German) the language doesn't always flow easily but it does set out the salient points of the often talked about "identity metasystem."

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

There's an important new document available in the field of "user-centric" identity, and it's one I think we should all read.

Originally published in The Future of Identity in the Information Society: Challenges and Opportunities (edited by Kai Rannenberg, Denis Royer and André Deuker) this long paper/short book is called "The Proposal for a Common Identity Framework" and is a joint effort of Kim Cameron (Microsoft's identity architect), Reinhard Posch (federal CIO for the Austrian government) and Kai Rannenberg (who holds the T-Mobile chair for Mobile Business and Multilateral Security at Goethe University Frankfurt).

The paper is often quite dense and (as befits a paper written in English by a Canadian, an Austrian and a German) the language doesn't always flow easily but it does set out the salient points of the often talked about "identity metasystem."

I especially like that it begins with a glossary of terms (and definitions) as used in the paper. As Cameron mentions in a blog post this wasn't an attempt to create a vocabulary of the IdM or IAM industries: "This wasn't intended to open up old wounds or provoke ontological debate. We just wanted to reduce ambiguity about what we actually mean to say in the rest of the paper. To do this, we did think very carefully about what we were going to call things, and tried to be very precise about our use of terms."

In other words, before starting to discuss identity issues, the three authors took the time to lay out the words they would be using to reference objects and procedures needed to discuss the themes in the paper. This alone makes the paper a worthy reference.

Not that I necessarily agree with their terms and definitions, but that I do think it is important for us to agree on a set of terms that will be used within any discussion of issues.

A project was begun some time ago under the auspices of the discussion group called The Identity Gang to create a lexicon  of terms used within the identity space and come up with common definitions understood by all. While not exactly a failure, work on the lexicon has languished for a couple of years. It may be because at a meeting before a recent Catalyst conference to come up with definitions for 10 or more new terms the participants (about 20 to 25 of us) couldn't resolve even one term in the few hours we were assembled.

Creating the vocabulary is a difficult undertaking, but one worthy of being attempted. In the end, we will at least have gotten a better understanding of how people outside our own narrow silo think about the important issues facing us.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.