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@kantarainitiative.org
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As @katrynadow tweeted, "And that's a wrap on 2016" (adding a lovely pic of the Sydney Harbour bridge and Opera House silhouletted silhouetted against a backdrop of fireworks) there are no better words to offer.
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It's been a transformational year for Kantara, bringing its own challenges that together, we have all risen to and overcome. When I go back in time 12 months to when the Board made the unprecented unprecedented decision to self incorporate as a separate organization, replace its service management company, and initiate the transition of Exec Director - all in its one single December 2015 meeting - the enormity of it at the time looked ... well... scarydaunting!
Then when you add one adds the historic ructions in the political landscape and the appauling appalling events brought on by war, terror and natural disaster, there's a valid case to be thankful to see for the last end of 2016, so we can focus on doing our part in making 2017 memorabe for all the right reasons100% positively memorable.
And there is a lot we can do.
In the world of identity we have been witness to the rise and rise of the Blockchain phenomenon that might or might not herald a new dimension to counterbalance the rise and rise of identity theft and hacking on a scale hitherto unseen, with seemingly no target immune.
And in the world of privacy and personal data, our electronic connectedness sees a global rippling effect on us all in the industry as the EU prepares for the enforcement of GDPR and the introduction of eID.
XXXXBut we have come through it, strongerMy November in began in Washington DC, as I made my way back from IIW in California. I took the opportunity to catch up with Nbrought ATE and EHNAC, our Liaison organizations in the Health arena, having had a remote call with DirectTrust a few months ago, and we explored optifor Kantaraons to reinvigorate the Health Identity Assurance Working Group. I also spent an interesting hour with Joel Minton of login.gov to better understand the work going on there, sharing some of my personal experiences from New Zealand's RealMe (which bears a strong resemblance to login.gov), and how industry could assist going forward.
Next stop was Canada (Ottawa) where Kantara liaison DIACC was holding 2 days of events for industry to dovetail onto the Government-only International Identity Summit. It was great to see so many members, Board members and non member participants on the podium and in the audience at this well attended event. I gave a short presentation that analysed where Governments invested member dues, time, or resource into industry consortia (not necessarily consistent) and joined a panel of government and industry representatives discussing the challenges facing pan-jurisdiction identity today and the ways these are being tackled. President Allan and I took the opportunity to present Joni Brennan, immediate-past Executive Director, a gift of appreciation from the Board on behalf of the members. A big shout-out of thanks to Kantara member 2Keys, who gave up some of their presentation slot to allow us to carry out this delightful task.
The following week I was back in London, presenting ID Pro at Whitehall Media's six monthly UK IDM conference and the week after the circus moved to Paris. The early part of the week was devoted to the ISSE conference hosted by our newest liaison, EEMA where I 'wet-signed' our Memorandum of Understanding at the evening networking event and the following day appeared on an international panel discussing what it would take to achieve trans-Atlantic interoperability in the identity federation space between one of Kantara's other liaison partners, IDESG with the EU's eID part of eIDAS.
The month's event finished with celebrating the 10th anniversary of WebScience in various countries on November 29th, and the London event featured our dear friend and fellow cohort, Doc Searls on the panel. Another great event.
While the first day of December started with another memorable London conference for me - MEF - which I will talk about more in the next Director's Corner, the outlook for the rest of the month is reflective of the family time ahead. Let's treasure our family time!
Keep warm northern hemisphere folks, and my early good tidings for the upcoming festive season 
Cheers!
Colin
Around the Houses:.
Liaisons:
- Kantara and EEMA the European Association for e-identity and Security, signed a Memorandum of Understanding Paris on November 15th. The MOU aims to facilitate collaboration between the two organizations in Europe combining EEMA's network of relationships with Kantara's programs and innovation development platforms.
New Activities:
- The Board and several Leadership Council Chairs have commenced 'Tiger Team' meetings to re-craft the organization's strategy for 2017. The teams cover the organization's Mission, Activities and Membership. We expect to be report out on the results of this work late February. It is a time consuming but immensely valuable exercise which is bringing forward some really innovative ideas. I look forward to sharing them with you.
New Members: Kantara welcomes new member Andi Hindle and Eli Fisk. Great to have you aboard Andi and Eli!
Marketing:
- Stand by for a short end-of-year satisfaction survey of members. All we do, we do for you. So please take a little time to complete the survey to tell us we have things right or where we can improve.
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 DG has split deliverables into 4 project streams: Body Of Knowledge, Governance, Membership and Services, and Code of Practice. ID Pro is aiming to open the DG to further membership in late February once this phase of pre-formation is complete.
- As always if you have a query or question, staff are only to willing to assist. Email them on staff@kantarainitiative.org
Events:
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Our industry is stacked full of observers, commentators, bloggers, researchers, report writers, tweeters and re-tweeters. Nothing wrong in that. They all contribute in their own way.
But there are precious few organizations in the industry that actually develop things, build things and deploy things - developed, built and deployed by the community in the interests of humanity and ethics that tangibly help to put tools into the hands of users to make their online activities safer, more private and under their control.
Kantara is one of those precious few in the world. I hope that is why you are here reading this, identifying yourself with the pivotal role that this organization plays and all that it has to offer.
Often without public accolade or recognition, Kantara's member volunteers - drawn from the Directors, the Assurance Review Board, the Leadership Council, the approved CSPs, the accredited assessors, the organizational and individual members, liaison organizations, plus a long tail of non member participants - put to work their great minds to collaboratively conceive and develop real tools that 'walk' all that 'talk'.
We have UMA - the only profile in the world for distributed authorization and delegation built for the modern, lightweight mobile world - gaining attention and rapid adoption, not only from the tech sector, but increasingly from the legal and health professions, as we do with the Blockchain Smart Contracts DG. We have the Consent Receipt specification about to go to public review - another world first. We are recognised experts in conformity assessment with our experience in operating the Identity Assurance program for the US Federal government's FICAM initiative, with a clutch of partners looking at us to potentially extend it to assess and assure their trust frameworks. And we have the other Working Groups and Discussion Groups building towards their goals, such as but not limited to the new paradigm that IRM portends and the ID Pro Discussion Group's efforts to build a home for digital identity professionals.
Governments and policy-makers are attracted to Kantara by what they see at the grass-roots level and want it in the room in other fora - like ITAC in its role to support the OECD and in Vienna earlier this year to observe UNCITRAL - we welcome their interest.
What we strive to do and the egalitarian consensus driven culture in which we do it, is not for everyone however. While some folks have not renewed their membership in 2016, many more have chosen to join us. December's New Members are OneWorldIdentity, Collective Underwriters,Inc and John Macaulay (of whom you will see much more in the Health Identity Assurance Working Group). A very warm welcome folks. We welcome your interest and your investment in time and money. We need all of it and more besides, if we are to do more of what we do. With more money and more volunteer effort, the more we can do - it's that simple .
Your leadership has been working harder than ever this last quarter of the year to align the organization's positioning in 2017 with the work actually happening.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank my hard working dedicated staff - Ruth for all things Identity Assurance and KIPI - and Oliver for all things technical, web and visual, the super team at Virtual Management Inc and those individuals across the Board of Directors and its sub committees, the Leadership Council and Working/Discussion groups who have worked harder than anyone can imagine to drive the organization forward. You know who you are and I salute each and every one of you!
2017 will be a great year for Kantara. Of that I am certain. Enjoy the last hours of 2016 and prepare yourself for the great ride that 2017 is sure to be .
Cheers!
Colin