Hello everyone
This is the running update from the Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact ED Colin at kantarainitiative dot org.
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Summer marches on in the northern hemisphere with a continuation of wild extremes of weather, while in the southern hemisphere, Kantara staff tell me its been bitterly cold in South America.
Whichever hemisphere you are in, I hope that the annual pause in pace, gives you time for some rest and recovery - perhaps also some time to respond to Kantara's member survey.
Without the constant pressure of conferences, Kantara staff use this period of the year to do all-important maintenance and updates to the website and wiki. Some of these changes are subtle but I hope you see them nonetheless. This year has been no exception tho' we have noted how much busier it is this year, with a full slate of calls for the assurance program, strategic opportunities and upcoming conference planning.
As Staff do that, we spare a thought for our members in APAC where it is 'business as usual' with Australia and New Zealand both holding their respective identity conferences.
Talking of upcoming conferences, the NGI_Trust project of which Kantara Europe is a consortium partner has been particularly busy. The place to get the full slate of information on NGI_Trust and the other projects in the NGI program under the umbrella of the EC's H2020 grant funding initiative is the NGI Forum 2019, which will take place in Helsinki on September 25th, bringing together some of Europe’s top internet innovators, researchers and policymakers, who are shaping the internet of tomorrow. The NGI Forum 2019 website is well worth a look: https://www.ngiforum.eu/. As an added bonus for many Kantara members who will already be there, this year’s edition, will be co-located with the MyDataConference being held that week, offering opportunities to share knowledge with leading experts from a variety of disciplines, including privacy and trust, decentralised data governance, discovery and identification, artificial intelligence, and more.
Back to Kantara, its partners and its community-built specifications, there is exciting news to come in the last two weeks of the month so watch out for the announcement on social media.
Meanwhile, revel and feast on this great result from Kantara member Airside Mobile. And before you ask.. Yes. It does use Kantara's Consent Receipt specification. Who says nothing ever happens in July!
A final reminder to take a look at our 10th Anniversary celebration video, Infographic and social Wall here, straight off the homepage of the website (and scroll down).
This month we welcome new Individual Contributor members Robert Macmillan and Mike Kiser.
Furthermore, we warmly welcome back trust marked assurance program member AthenaHealth, along with Individual contributor member Health Identity Assurance WG Chair Dr Tom Sullivan.
Please join me in honoring these new and existing members in their support of Kantara's societal purpose, its specifications, R&D Program and Trust Marked Assurance operations.
On the community side of the house:
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As I type this on September 2nd - Labor Day in the US and Canada - I definitely sense the pace of activity picking up, not just in our digital identity and personal data industry, but across the spectrum of the public and private sectors, to say nothing of politics! What an interesting next few months this will be 
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The exciting news that I was portending in last month's blog has been delayed by a few weeks. Rest assured that it is coming, so please watch out for it on the website and on social media during this month.
As we gather our strength for the re-start of the conference circuit through until the end of the year, I hope that you have had a break over the northern hemisphere summer, got some skiing done in the south, and are poised for what is about to descend upon us. Take a look at the sheer spread of events at which Kantara is speaking on our Events page. While on the subject of events, Kantara has been offered complimentary passes to give to five lucky members for IDENTITY WEEK ASIA, October 8-9th 2019 at Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore. These passes are valued at $1000 so, even if you are not yet a member, and reside nearby or are visiting during that period, join now and save!
The mention of member-only benefits reminds me to note that the slate of draft standards and associated documents has arrived into the Kantara Board sub committee group from ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/ Working Group 5 (Identity Management & Privacy) for comment and review in advance of the next round of meetings in Paris next month. Given the difficulty many folks face in engaging with national body mirror groups, Kantara offers its members a rare opportunity to preview and contribute to this work through its Category C Liaison. If this is of interest, please contact Staff.
As reported last last month, Kantara staff have updated the the website and wiki over the summer. I hope that you can see the subtle changes! These updates have taken place while they have been fielding increased expressions of interest for the assurance program.
With that in mind, we have restarted our monthly Member Spotlight series. It features members that are highly invested in Kantara and is designed to give a sense of how their association with you has been of mutual benefit. It's a pleasure to see ID.me leading us off. This, and Member Spotlights from years gone by, can be found in the Membership drop-down menu of the website.
It's not only Staff that have been working hard. The Work Groups have been very busy over the summer:
- UMA has continued to develop its business-legal framework (thank you Eve, Tim Reiniger and all active participants),
- Consent & Info Sharing is updating its charter, planning new deliverables and working on others (thank you Jim, Iain, Lisa, John, Andrew, Mark, Mary and all active participants), while
- Identity Assurance and Healthcare Identity Assurance have both been contributing comments on draft documents from other industry and government bodies (thanks you Ken, Martin, Pete, Mark, Tom, Barry) as well as updating the IAF Overview. The new document will be titled “IAF Glossary and Overview” and will combine the IAF Overview and the IAF Glossary. Expect to see it shortly.
- A reminder from last month that the Federation Interoperability WG has met regularly through the summer having had acceptance of SAML2INT Implementation profile in the REFEDS community and looking to perform analysis of extended features to evolve it into is evolving a Deployment Profile with a brand name tbd, with further development of educational and assurance tools. If you are part of the REFEDS community you really should take this opportunity to join this group.
- and last but definitely not least is the emergence of the new FIRE (Federation Identity Resilient Ecosystem) WG, to carry on the work of the IDESG, whose assets transitioned to Kantara's Educational Foundation last year.
Enjoy August and if you are in the northern hemisphere possibly the last chance to relax and re-energize before the madness starts again in SeptemberTo give you a sense of the depth and breadth of IAWG's contributions in particular, the next 'Keeping up with Kantarians' email newsletter coming out mid-month in September will highlight this Group's selfless efforts 'to lift all boats' in helping other government and industry consortium efforts. This type of support effort is the essence of Kantara's mission and the ethics and ethos it steadfastly holds.
There is member news too from the KIPI R&D program. Steve Wilson's Lockstep Technologies has completed its Mobile Device Attribute Verification (MDAV) project. It is now commercially launched as VALIDIDY - a highly innovative reprise of certificate based attribute exchange via smartphone. It has a range of great use cases from First Responder to visiting in-home Healthcare workers. Be sure to check the VALIDIDY website out and speak to Steve or Les. The other Applied R&D project by Exponent Inc, is nearing completion of its NFC and BLE protocol based MOB4PACS project in effect turning the smartphone into a PIV card with fantastic high security and law enforcement potential. Breaking News: Exponent's final phase of work has been adjusted to support the release of the mDL standard ISO 18013-5 from the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 17/WG 10 working group. Given the mass of activity surrounding mDL, your organization may well be interested in understanding Exponent's efforts in advance of the market. If so (and if you are a Kantara member in good standing) please get in touch so I can make introductions that might prove to be very beneficial.
A brief update also from the two other Kantara branded entities:
- The Board of the Educational Foundation is meeting regularly, currently comprising the founders ISOC and ForgeRock, joined by Sal D'Agostino representing the FIRE WG arising out of the transition of IDESG's assets to Kantara last year, and 2 independent Directors but nonetheless very familiar with the raison d'etre of the Foundation, Kay Chopard Cohen and Angela Rey. The Foundation's Mission is being fine-tuned along with other policy development, while all the time looking for grant funding to provide education and guidance into various projects.
- Kantara Europe continues to be tightly focused on the H2020 NGI_Trust project's 2nd Call for Proposals which opens October 1st, the NGI_Trust consortium being the primary source of its existing funding.
This month we welcome back Individual Contributor member Ross Foard. Great to have you back with us in your individual capacity Ross..
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Summer's nearly over. Let's get cracking!
Kind Regards,
Colin
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