Hello everyone
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Welcome to this February 2021 posting of April 2021's Director's Corner.
All around the world, as we come to terms with the virus and start to get ahead of it, we continue to strive towards life as it once was. February has seen great swings in weather - from unusually blizzard conditions in Texas to unusually warm temperatures in Europe. Whatever the weather, the beat goes on inside and around the Kantara community.
It was great to welcome Neustar as our most recent Trust Mark holder for a component service that conformed to Kantara's NIST 800-63-3 Class of Approval under Kantara's Identity Assurance Trust Framework. There are several more services under assessment as I write, so 2021 is set to be a pivotal year as Kantara's Trust Framework goes mainstream. Why now you might ask? I've asked myself the same question in recent months. In discussions with Assurance Director Ruth, Assurance Review Board Chair Leif, the main Board and regulars on the Identity Assurance Work Group calls, we have put it down to the 'perfect storm' that the current climate has created. So in no particular order...
- There's the 'noise' around Trust Frameworks. That is good, because Kantara has been promulgating and operating a Trust Framework for conformity assessment and assurance since 2011 when the very first Trust Framework in this space (FICAM (Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management) was launched by the US Federal Government. By design Kantara's Trust Framework was built to operate both as stand-alone, as it is seen today, or as the conformance and assurance sub-set of another Trust Framework as it was under FICAM (the Trust Framework Solutions portion officially deprecated January 31st). As folks look at the other Trust Frameworks operating today such as eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) in Europe, or the TDIF (Trusted Digital Identity Framework) in Australia, and they hear about the PCTF (Pan Canadian Trust Framework) in Canada in MVP this year, and the Trust Frameworks being drafted in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and elsewhere, they are better able to understand the crucial role that Kantara's Trust Framework plays. That role is the crux of a Trust Framework - conformance, governance, responsibilities written into fully executed contracts. Structured policy, rules and requiring conformance to standards is all very well, but when 'the rubber hits the road', a jurisdiction considering cross recognition looks first and last at the veracity of the service providers' conformance as its baseline confidence indicator.
- There's a growing realization that NIST SP 800-63 Rev 3 (and soon revision 4) remains as the de-jure de-facto standard just as its predecessor 800-63 Rev 2 (or in its international guise ISO/IEC 29115 or ITU-T's x.1254 Entity Authentication Assurance) was. You can find elements of them in the eIDAS Implementing Acts, in the UK's GPGs, in Canada's early work on CATS (Cyber Authentication Technology Solutions) Interface Architecture and Specification, in New Zealand's Authentication standards for online services. Authentication requirements in Australia's TDIF are pulled straight from 63-3. Slam dunk. So what standard are you going to choose to build your product against if you are an international IDaaS brand that is looking for the most cost effective conformance that gets you most of the way, in most jurisdictions, to minimize the incremental lift for in-country conformance? It’s 800-63. It's akin to a prime number or form factor in mathematics, or the US dollar in currency where it's tradeable anywhere.
- In the US, there is emerging evidence that those federal agencies charged with obligations under the OMB M 19-17 executive memo - which stipulate the adoption of 63-3 - are actively moving on those obligations. While we have not yet seen many of these downstream directives published in policy, there seems to be some informal industry chatter that points to a formal position being announced in coming months.
- Globally, add the COVID effect where more people are needing more access to more services online - in healthcare, in Education, in Financial Services, in Government services, in essence everywhere.
And there you have it; the perfect storm that is evidenced by the steadily increasing adoption of Kantara's Trust Framework and in particular 800-63-3 (most cases at IAL2 and AAL2).!
Like many of us, I'm pleased to beckon in the new month, tho' March had plenty to offer. For me it was something of a watershed month, notifying staff and members first in advance of it going public, of my intention to step back from leading Kantara in a few months time. I'm at that time of life where time and attention is needed on personal finance, assets and property ... and life really. Kantara has been all consuming and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of surmounting hurdles as they arise. But life balance is important too, and mine is overdue for a reset. Also overdue is my need to switch my residency back to my home country New Zealand for at least 3 years, so the time feels right to hit the reset button on the work side too, rather than having to work much of the night in New Zealand to operate Kantara's primary time zones. It's only a step (semi-retirement), it's not retirement! I will remain in and around Kantara and around the industry for quite a while yet, but more relaxed than the deadline driven cadence of leading a global community of 3 Kantara branded organizations.
My impending move wasn't Kantara's only news item for March. Far from it.
There's a sense of this phenomenon emerging in membership too. Please join me in welcoming new members Beruku Identity from the UK, and the Digital Identification Bureau from Papua New Guinea. Thanks Thanks to the continued support from renewing members Board Director Presidency holder IDEMIA, MIT Trust :: Data Consortium, Accredited Assessor KUMA, Accredited Assessor Seadot from Sweden, and Individual Contributors Janelle Allen, Lisa LeVasseur and Ross Foard. Thank you all! It's great to have you back!
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