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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@kantarainitiativecolin at kantarainitiative dot org.org

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February sees the start of the conference season, and for many of us in this community, that starts with RSA in San Francisco.

I think we can safely conclude that Kantara did it 'with bells on' this year .  

Not only did we have some great presentations by Kantara members Eve Maler and Ian Glazer, but also Sarah Squire did a great job in leading the 'Birds of a Feather' session for our pre-formative digital identity professionals project (a.k.a ID-Pro).

And don't forget social!  'Breakfast with Kantara' at Jillian's on 4th Street was well attended despite the early hour on the Wednesday, while the 'Friends and Family' cocktail party with the IDESG folks on Thursday graced visitors to Mary Hodder's parents hillside apartment offering most exquisite views of San Francisco and the bridge.  Hat tip to Kantara Director organizations CA, Digi.me and Forgerock - thank you for sponsoring - and thanks to Mary's and Virtual's organizational prowess!

We sure needed the respite by then because the day-long Board meeting at Forgerock's SFO offices on Thursday was packed with reports and presentations, action, motions and minutes - all with one aim - to deliver great value to Kantara members through 2017 and beyond.

From San Francisco the circus moved to Vienna, where long time member and eGov Working Group Chair Rainer Hoerbe had organized the TIIME (Trust and Internet Identity Meeting in Europe) unconference.  Rainer and his wife Andrea, assisted by Sabine, were fantastic hosts and steered us on and off trams and through the beautiful streets of Vienna to a historic tavern where Kantara's European members ruminated over items discussed in Kantara's pre-conference workshop. Along with many familiar names, see the proceedings of the TIIME unconference here .

February was not all conferences and play - make no mistake.

Kantara's new Mission statement was given its seal of approval by the Board at its February meeting.  It goes to the essence of what we do:Longer and lighter days during March for the northern hemisphere are welcome even though the snow still hangs around in some countries. Along with the spring weather, Kantara has felt that upbeat activity level to its work, as 3 Work Groups see the finishing feel to work as well, as the activity level rises, whether it line for their respective projects.

eGov and Identity Relationship Management are ready to vote on their guidance as Kantara Reports – eGov’s Code of Conduct for Relying Parties in Identity Management, and IRM’s V2.0 of the Principles of Identity Relationship Management.  The Federated Interoperability Working Group has completed its first major piece of specification work since the eGov profile for SAML 2.0 was passed over to the FIWG for integration into the SAML 2.0 Int profile derived from the Research and Education community.  Look for those efforts to go into public review in late April.

And there’s more to come in April. The whole world eagerly awaits the completion of the UMA 2.0 specification, while the Report from the Blockchain Smart Contracts Discussion Group is shaping up to be a classic piece of ground breaking thought leadership that Kantara’s volunteers are renowned for.

If you've read this far, read Kantara's new Mission statement again;  

Kantara Initiative is the global consortium improving trustworthy use of identity and personal data through innovation, standardization and good practice

A lot of what you will see from Kantara this year will speak directly to its Mission.  It's easy to talk about it and write about the need for it, as other consortia in our community are so adept at.  But it's darn hard to do. 

Subject Matter Experts and Money. That's what it takes. We are blessed with the former and the richness of the conversation they bring. We are constantly challenged by the latter.  To those organizations hanging out on Kantara's mailing list or lurking on its Working and Discussion Groups, I say this to you; 'It is not going to happen by magic'. If you think that by sitting and waiting for somebody else to invest the time and money to build the artefacts so you can just consume them, you are mistaken. Kantara prides itself on its conviction to maintain low barrier to entry so folks can engage with the work. That is sacrosanct. But unless and until you actually engage with the people and invest in the work yourselves, the value will not follow.  So please - get engaged, get out your check-book to direct some funds to the piece of work you want to see Kantara do, and in so doing, drive this community forward in improving the trustworthy use of identity and personal data to build a better, safer and more equitable digital economy. 

You'll see a lot of changes in the coming months - a new, simpler membership structure, some things going on in Europe, refreshed ByLaws and Operating Procedures to support a refreshed IPR policy, and announcements about new conformity assessment specifications to deliver our mission to the new emerging standards and regulations that will underpin so much of future online experiences. 

It's big, it's bold - it's 2017 .

Cheers!.

It follows that Kantara members are often invited to speak at interesting events.  It’s easy to see why. Quite simply, Kantara ‘walks its talk’.  One such event was a Barclay’s Bank hosted event in London on March 16^th – the Data Sharing Principles Group – whose ambition is to promote to the public at large, a very simple set of primary principles;

• My data is mine
• It cannot be shared without my consent
• I have the right that my consent will not be abused

Kantara Director and Digi.me founder Julian Ranger and I both spoke, and Mark Lizar co-chair of the Consent and Information Sharing Work Group chipped in with supporting comments. The previous week I was in Washington DC representing Kantara at the GSA’s FICAM day, which focussed on presenting the significant progress made on digital signature interoperability between the EU and the US. This work will play a key role in the continued growth of the digital economies of all applicable States. I finished the month ‘back home’ in New Zealand with a mix of personal time and work, meeting up with Kantara members and preparing for ISO SC27 meetings in Hamilton, where Kantara has a Category C Liaison with Working Group 5 – Identity Management and Privacy Technologies.

Remember; Kantara is one of the very few places outside of a National Body where you can get to see and comment on the drafts of ISO standards in this space. If you are interested in joining that Board Sub Committee with necessarily restricted access due to ISO’s Copyright policy, please contact me.    

Roll on April! 

Colin

Around the Houses:

Marketing:

• We have some racy new badges, device stickers, Kantara flyers and slide deck ready to go for 2017.  To Members in good standing that are holding an event where Kantara and its assets are being presented, please email staff@kantarainitiative.org to take some to distribute.   had some great press coverage during March.  You can read it here:

Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:

• The WGs and DGs of Leadership Council now operate a blog, so you can read what's going on in groups you are not regularly attending. See it here
• ID Pro DGwork is making good progress with Membership/Services and Governance.  Those things need to take shape fast now, as corporate interest in becoming founding members with requisite seed funds support was very much in evidence at RSA. We have 3 large well known corporations interested in supporting ID Pro as founding members. We need 3 more to make it happen.  has a new logo! Image Added   that you can find on the early phase of a new website: idpro.org and on Twitter @idpro_org. If your organization wants to be acclaimed as a founding member of a new Association of Digital Identity Professionals, please email me, colin@kantarainitiative.org .  The Consent Receipt 45 day Public Review finished on February 20th with a good bunch of comments from across the globe.  Voltage Gate's David Turner is in the editing chair and is preparing the disposition of comments for Consent and Information Sharing Work Group to review and during March. colin at kantarainitiative dot org.  
• The Identity Assurance Working Group is reviewing the officially published 800-63-3 draft and preparing a further round of comments to augment those submitted on the GitHub pre-release in the summer.The Identity Relationship Management Working Group are its new Charter and is preparing some exciting new plans to support the Identity Assurance program this year. 
• The Federation Identity Working Group is poised to vote through their draft 'Refining the Design Principles of Identity Relationship Management' Report as a follow up to its initial 'Principles' report that attracted worldwide attention. I'm sure this one will too.The eGovernment Working Group is poised to vote through its draft interim report 'Code of Conduct for Relying Parties' to support the Identity Assurance program and future conformance assessments.its draft 'SAML V2.0 Implementation Profile for Federation Interoperability' - a joint effort between the global R&E community and Kantara, which is designed to converge requirements and conformance into a single easy profile.  
• KIPI - the Kantara Identity, Privacy Incubator, has 3 live projects that have a potential funding value of up to US $2.4Million!   
• As always if you have a query or question, staff are only too willing to assist.  Email them on staff@kantarainitiative.org   here https://kantarainitiative.org/contact-us/        

Events: See them here! https://kantarainitiative.org/calendars/

• Next up is the KYC conference in London in MarchISO SC27 in Hamilton, New Zealand in April, then IIW and EIC in May, along with other more local and regional events along the way. And we are quietly working on something very special for September. So don't leave your summer vacation too late please folks.. And stay tuned for something special for September. 

Cheers!

Colin