Hello everyone
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I begin this final Director's Corner of 2020 with 2021 just a few hours away. Many of our members in both hemispheres are taking time out for Holidays, so I hope hope this update finds you safe, well, rested and recharging for what is to be a pivotal 2021 - globally, nationally, locally and individually. To those active member and non-member volunteers that keep doing the doing, and the Credential Service Providers and Accredited Assessors driving the assurance Trust Framework that is the beating heart of Kantara, my sincere and grateful thanks.
2021 will certainly be pivotal for Kantara as we wrestle with increased global interest in our capabilities and demand for our services. Our resource pool however remains largely comprised of the same familiar voices that participate on our calls and in emails on our group discussion threads. I encourage everyone to ask what can you do to champion Kantara further within your organization, and what can we do to help you do that successfully? Take our survey here.
Thinking about our resources, it is with sadness that we bid farewell to ForgeRock's Allan Foster and the Internet Society's Robin Wilton from the Board. Their operational support, evangelism and strategic insight over the last 8+ years will be missed. We also bid farewell to Catherine Schulten from Staff. While between jobs later in 2020, Catherine has, on a modest contract, been helping out primarily with Board and Staff support but also extending into Group support at times. To Catherine, on behalf of the Board, Staff and membership, we wish you the very best for your exciting and enormously challenging new role with Change Healthcare. We will miss your strategic insight, your 'can do' attitude to turn your hand to anything that needed doing and your sense of humor. But as one door closes, another opens. We're hiring! If you, or someone you know, is experienced in the things that Kantara operates and supports, please let me know.
Looking back into December, I want to start with the call for nominations for Directors at Large. For the two positions provided for by current Bylaws, we had four organization nominations - one from Canada, one from Germany and two from the US. This was a great result; in fact so great, that the Board is proposing to accept all four. But to do so, a minor amendment to the Bylaws is required. And to make that amendment Kantara needs to notify members thirty days prior to it being enacted. Once enacted Kantara will conduct an all-Member Ballot for the slate. Members will see an email with all the details soon.
Also in December, we welcomed Origo Services Limited from Scotland as members. For several years now Origo has been fascinated with the functionality of the UMA protocol and has been internally working on a Profile of UMA related to the UK Government's Pension Dashboard Programme. And upon joining, Origo offered its profile to the UMA Working Group for consideration as a contribution and onwards to a Kantara publication, the form of which has not yet been decided. The last couple of UMA calls have been largely dedicated to the first phase of this review by the UMA WG participants. We understand that the Pensions Dashboard Programme is expected to make considerable progress during 2021, so the contribution proposal is timely. Thank you Origo! And while thinking about members, welcome back Accredited Assessor, The The Slandala Company Company - thank you for renewing!
Reflecting on the past year, I'm proud of what Kantara has achieved.
- By the numbers we
- received double the expressions of interest in conformity assessment, assurance and grant of trust mark in our Trust Framework Operations program - both our existing classes of approval and to operate others,
- doubled our publications,
- doubled our responses to requests for comment on consultations on digital identity around the world, and
- slightly increased our Membership; and
- We launched the Privacy & Identity for mDL Discussion Group which attracts an ever-growing and influential following as the draft Report begins to take shape. Thank you AAMVA, TSA and others for your support there.
Looking forward to 2021, we have, in the near term, the Directors at Large to seat of course and our fresh new website for review and comment. We also have increasing interest for our Trust Framework mapping and governance capabilities from the public sector largely, from all corners of the world, so we look forward to translating that interest into funded work projects. Last, but certainly not least, is the Board's priority work areas that President Matt summarized at the AGM on November 30th. Together with the work areas, comes several quite significant strategic changes - some have been in the oven for a couple of years, others are very recent products of the Board's 2021-2025 strategic review during the mid-year. While different in detail, they are all common in supporting the unique and open Kantara community that you are a part of. Whether it is conformity assessment and assurance at the heart of operating Trust Frameworks agnostic to any scheme or standard, or mapping gaps and deltas between standards, schemes and trust Frameworks or digital identity related RFP support or sponsored publications arising out of working and discussion group collaboration, existing work and new opportunities are designed to blend nicely together in a re-organized and re-energized Kantara.
New for 2021! Reduce your already modest membership fee even further by introducing new members! Each existing Individual or Organization level member in good standing that introduces a prospective Organization level member that subsequently pays its member dues before the introducing member's next renewal anniversary, gets 25% of the new member's membership level rebated off the introducing member's membership renewal to a maximum of 100% of the introducing member's membership level.
Happy New Year! See you on the other side 
.What a flying start to the year! There can't be any Januarys in public memory packed with so much drama, sadness and hope, inspiration - if not joy. Certainly a flying start for the Kantara state.
You'll see a press announcement any day now regarding another service provider's component/partial service that has been approved under Kantara's Identity Assurance Trust Framework. We also understand that another contract has been signed between a global service provider and an assessor to undertake a conformity assessment against Kantara's NIST 800-63-3 Class of Approval.
For many organisations January heralds the commencement of a new financial year where plans and budgets begin to be put into action. Kantara is eternally grateful for the membership and sponsorship that results from the strategic decisions taken by organizations to invest in our community for the betterment of the wider digital identity and privacy ecosystem. Remember that each existing Individual or Organization level member in good standing that introduces a prospective Organization level member that subsequently pays its member dues before the introducing member's next renewal anniversary, gets 25% of the new member's membership level rebated off the introducing member's membership renewal to a maximum of 100% of the introducing member's membership level. At Kantara, everyone benefits!
Thank you for rejoining ID Crowd! It's great to have you back, as we celebrate the renewals from the Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand Government, Board Director digi.me, Accredited Assessor Zygma, Patient Centric Solutions, and NeoCapita in Australia.
Members will be aware of the Board's proposal to consider adding all four Directors-at-Large candidates to the Board. An All-Member-Ballot for the complete slate will arrive in your Inbox later this week. Should the All-Member-Ballot be successful, all four will join the Board. The Board continues to develop action plans on its priority areas to pivot the organization onto both its revised mission - to grow and fulfill the market for trustworthy use of identity and personal data - and that builds towards its vision to see the equitable and transparent exchange of identity and personal data for mutual value. Finally, Ken Dagg has joined the Staff cohort to pick up the Board Secretariat duties in a very busy period of transition for the Board.
Kantara community Groups and staff alike, had packed agendas over January. Kantara joined forces with the Future Identity Council (FIC) to submit a detailed response to AAMVA's RFI regarding setting up a Digital Trust Service, essentially a public key store, in their pursuit of rolling out mDL across the US, though a sizable portion of our joint response was directed to what global mDL Governance might look like (think ICAO for passports for a sense of the scale). Given how busy both organizations were, FIC's Gail Hodges and myself brought it home largely ourselves (the exception being the Privacy questions - thank you again John Wunderlich!) within the very tight timeframe. Both organizations will use February to play it back into our respective communities to ensure that we captured your perspectives correctly, and if not, make any changes known to AAMVA. And while mentioning the US, Treasury reached out to invite Kantara, along with a range of private sector companies and industry associations, to a US Financial Sector Policy Roundtable on February 9th. While unfortunately a closed session, members can take some comfort from the fact that around 25% of invited guests are Kantara members and liaisons, and are on the slate to speak (as well as Kantara itself).
We celebrated International Data Privacy Day wonderfully, with the launch of the Advanced Notice & Consent Receipt (ANCR) WG along with related events continuing through the weekend. It was fitting therefore that Sunday, January 31st was the deadline for comments on the 2nd Working Draft of ISO/IEC TS 27560 Consent Record Information Structure, and it was the ANCR WG that developed the comments fed back to ISO through Kantara's Liaison with ISO SC27 Working Group 5. As we circle the globe, I should mention the interactions we had with Australian, New Zealand, UK and US Government agencies this past month.
Do you like the new website? Take a look and please let us know.
Kind regards,
Colin
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