Greetings folks
This is the running update from the Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact the ED colin at kantarainitiative dot org.
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I am writing this from the OECD HQ in Paris where Kantara is carrying out its responsibilities to ITAC in its support of OECD member nations with advice on Security and Privacy related matters of the continued development of the digital economy.
This is one of those roles which, while not in the spotlight of industry commentators, reflects the global recognition of Kantara's credibility in the space and the expertise of its members.
As some of you know, the BlockChain SmartContracts Discussion Group is in the final stages of completing its Report that outlines the nature of the issues it has uncovered together with suggestions as to how Kantara could proceed to resolve these issues.
I intervened to remind the Group what Kantara does and the cadence of its 'invent-innovate-implement' process, to help them mark their suggestions along that continuum.
As I did so, I got positive feedback from some members and non member participants in that group many of whom had not heard Kantara explained this way before, so I thought I would repeat it here.
If you stand back and look across Kantara's portfolio, you'll see a repeating cycle as it goes about its work - Brainstorming Discussion Groups - to - Spec writing Working Groups - to - conformance assessment Programs.
Kantara Directors offer the Discussion Group platform to make it easy to contribute and investigate, size and frame up value propositions that industry needs.
DGs are the 'birds of a feather' that typically draw in first movers and thought leaders like you, in order to frame up follow-up Working Groups that bring in a community of paying members because that community wants that specification, API or whatever written or coded, to solve a particular problem.
And once that artifact is complete the Working Group's community typically want to formalize that work through paid conformance assessment and approval, to delineate those who have it and those that don't, in the marketplace - for the safety, security and privacy of all users of the digital economy.
Quite simply, that is Kantara's business model.
Roughly 60% of Kantara's revenue comes from membership, and 40% from the Identity Assurance and other monetized Programs. Kantara wants to reverse that metric and in the long term, drive down the reliance on membership once a sufficient number of monetized programs can carry the overhead costs of the platform.
The Identity Assurance Program (the first of several we hope to offer) came about because of a need (in that case US Federal agencies) needing to leverage private sector Identity and Credential Service Providers which in turn brought the Credential Service and Identity Proofing Service Providers to join Kantara, form the Identity Assurance Working Group, contribute to the specification (in that case the Identity Assurance Framework) which in turn became the monetized 3rd party assessment and conformance Program it is to this day, and for which Kantara is known globally for.
You can see glimmers of this model surfacing in discussions in the Consent & Information Sharing WG about writing conformance criteria for the recently balloted Consent Receipt, and in the Identity of Things DG....
The Recommendations of a Work Group don't have to be a mirror image of the Identity Assurance Program, nor using the synergies of another WG's outputs, tho' both are good beacons to be guided by. But it does have to be a strong enough value proposition that motivates a community to come to Kantara to do their work to solve their problems.
And the directed/sponsored funds and/or member dues that flow in from that motivated community, allows Kantara to continue to cover the cost of great brainstorming DGs like the BSC DG that kick-starts the cadence of the model.
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Whew, that was a whirlwind May!
The action started on May 1st as we gathered in Mountain View for Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) day, the now traditional precursor to the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW).
Many of the attendees and presenters were presenting Kantara-derived solutions and together with VRM's anchor organization Customer Commons Inc, we share the same philosophies around 'do not track'.
Customer Commons uses Kantara's platform to develop its User Submitted Terms project in the same wiki area used by Consent Receipt, under the Consent and Information Sharing Work Group.
I encourage you to support the great work going on there as all online providers serving EU located citizens count down the days till GDPR enforcement.
Kantara's artefacts in the form of UMA 2.0 and Consent Receipt along with its API the Consent Receipt Generator, is one of just a handful of actual free downloadable tools for use to enable organizations
to seize the opportunities for good corporate citizenry and competitive advantage that the GDPR offers. Matthias Reinwarth, a Kuppinger Cole analysts explained it this way.
IIW was itself the 'family gathering' we know it for but like all extended families, a bunch of new folks show up with new ideas to challenge 'de jure' thinking in the space, which is always interesting. Kantara and
other sponsors make the event possible. Thanks to the many members and non-member participants who led sessions on UMA, ID Pro, Consent Management, Identity conformance assessment and policy sessions related to digital identity.
The following week the digital identity circus moved onto Munich for the European Identity Conference. Kantara held its pre-conference workshop and European Plenary which was packed full again,
despite being given a bigger room this year. The workshop was capped off with big blue 'ID Pro Body of Knowledge' cake - courtesy of BoK project lead and 'local' Thorsten Niebuhr.
Some folks joined 'Breakfast with Kantara' the following day, before being treated to some fantastic keynotes from Eve Maler on UMA, Ian Glazer on ID Pro and Allan Foster on Consent.
Kantara was 'in the news' later that week as the story broke about its 3 applied research and development projects being granted by DHS up to a total of US$2.4M, as we cascade these funds down to the project performers.
The following week I was representing Kantara at the OECD HQ in Paris where Kantara is carrying out its responsibilities to ITAC in its support of OECD member nations with advice on Security and Privacy related matters of the continued development of the digital economy. I gratefully acknowledge the support of other members who were attending the K(NO)W conference in Washington DC that same week.
As I am writing this Kantara is making final preparations for its booth, pre-conference workshop and several presentations and panels at the Cloud Identity Summit in Chicago. Please wear your Kantara 'swag' or seek out those sporting buttons, banners and stickers, to get yours. See you there!
I want to finish this month's Director's corner with a shout-out to the new members joining Kantara over the past few months: from the UK, Adunity (on the side of 'good' wrt the UK digital advertising community), Meeco from the Personal Data community, Identity.com seeking approval under Kantara's Identity Assurance Program and TrustMark, European identity solution providers UbiSecure (welcome back guys!), and Janelle Allen & William Lowe as individual contributors.
Recognition of new members should be given in the context of grateful thanks for renewing members, without whose support I would not be writing this today on this platform; Deutsche Telekom AG, Government of Canada, Internet2, Neustar,
Scott Perry Associates, Symantec, Synchronoss/Zentry and a whole bunch of committed individual contributors.
Kind Regards
Colin
Around the Houses:
Marketing:
We had good press and social network coverage AprilMay.
- See Follow https://twitter.com/KantaraNews and https://twitter.com/UMAWG and https://twitter.com/KantaraCISWG and 'Follow' them from now on!.
- KIPI - the Kantara Identity, Privacy Incubator, featured strongly as did UMA's last call for contributions to UMA 2.0 'in the news' .
Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:
- Keep a look out for a new Report - "Refining the Design Principles of Identity Relationship Management v2.0f from the Identity Relationship Management Work Group, hitting the Reports and Recommendations page later this month.
- You can keep up with all the latest directly off the Leadership Council's Blog here or come to see our Working Group Chairs in action at CIS '17 in Chicago June 19-22nd.
- As always if you have a query or question, staff are only too willing to assist. Email them here https://kantarainitiative.org/contact-us/
Events: See them here! https://kantarainitiative.org/calendars
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- And still stay tuned for extra special events September and beyond.
Cheers!Kind Regards
Colin