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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While the weather extremes continue to impact our members around the globe be it with the searing heat and bush fires in Australia, unseasonal heat and peat fires in the north of England, or heavy dumps of snow in the US (even snow in Las Vegas and Hawaii!), the digital identity and personal data privacy domains stepped up a gear as the this year’s conference year season gets into full swing.
February enabled Kantara's Assurance program program to show the results of the weeks of intense activity in the Assurance Review Board with 2 two major announcements. The first was Experian's CrossCore Platform Service which was approved under Kantara's “NIST 800-63 rev.3” Class of Approval and gained the coveted Kantara Trust Mark for NIST 800-63 rev.3-conformant services......................In Europe, much of January was taken up with adding the final touches to The second was Excelsior Security Solutions, that became a Kantara Accredited Assessor the last week of February following a recommendation by the Assurance Review Board and Kantara Board of Director’s approval.
February 1st heralded the official opening of calls for proposals for Kantara Initiative Europe's 2019 European Union H2020 grant funded NGI_Trust project with other consortia members GEANT, Fraunhofer, Tecnalia, EFIS and EDN. This first call opened February 1st and The call closes April 30th and has received strong interest already with nearly two months remaining. Regardless of whether you are a European-based individual, research institute, start-up or mature company that is building solutions for the Next Generation Internet, we need your help to make those solutions human-centric by developing them to be both scalable as well as privacy and trust enhancing. It doesn't end there however. During January, Kantara Europe has been working with two other consortia to prepare bids for further grant H2020 funding. I'll keep you posted on our progress.
While on the subject of R&D, we were looking forward to seeing our two star performers in the KIPI R&D program - Lockstep's MDAV certificate capsules project re-branded as ValidIDy and Exponent's MOB4PACS project using smartphones as PIV cards with NFC and BLE - pitch their solutions at the DHS S&T Cyber Security & Innovation Showcase in Washington DC January 8-11th. Regrettably the Federal Government Shutdown put an end to that, but the good news is that it has been rescheduled for March 18-20th. Since the postponement notice came too late for international participants to change travel plans, I came to DC anyway and had hugely valuable discussions with our many friends and supporters in that city. You know who are - so thank you!
Things haven't been quiet on the Trust Framework and Assurance program either! A second organization's solution was approved under Kantara's 800-63-3 scheme. Others are working through the process while still others are giving the idea consideration. An interesting dynamic that can play out (and did so this month) is when the public sector steps back (in this case the furlough through much of December and January and the TFS part of the GSA FICAM program increasingly moribund), the private sector steps up and gets on with it. We have also had enquiries from two organizations interested in bringing their schemes to Kantara to operate. I'll keep you up to date as they progress.
Of the work groups, the Consent & Information Sharing and UMA groups continued to attract the most attention as they plan their consent receipt interoperability demo and submission to IETF respectively. The Identity Assurance Work Group is building its call attendances back up as the the cycle of document revisions sets the baseline for additional work in 2019. The short life ID Proofing and Verification Discussion Group, which has enjoyed high call attendance, has a really strong set of use cases with which to report back to the Study Period on the topic at ISO SC27 Working Group 5 in Tel Aviv in April. If you hurry there's still time to get yours in.
We have been busy getting Kantara community discounts and planning our participation at Conferences and Events too. Of course our participation is your participation. A big shout-out of thanks to those members who submitted Kantara related proposals to TIIME in Vienna, KNOW in Las Vegas, the European Identity Conference in Munich and Idenitiverse in Washington DC all of which are taking place in these coming monthsOur two other bids with a different mix of consortia are looking good! I hope to update you on our progress in due course.
The second week of February saw your European-based staff gather in Vienna for the TIIME workshop brilliantly convened by eGov WG Chair Rainer Hoerbe. We find this a perfect venue to brainstorm longer term strategy and work through detailed plans for both the Assurance program and the R&D program, because we are surrounded by our friends from the Research and Higher Education Federations who regularly attend this conference to engage with each other and with Kantara too, one of the few (if only) industry consortia to be bestowed such honor, given the alignment of our collective ethics and ethos. There were some inspiring ideas flowing from the proceedings in the link above. In addition, I was able to take two sessions on NGI_Trust, with over a handful participants from this event showing a strong interest shown in developing proposals. A significant output from the staff gathering was to learn of the appointment of Ruth Puente as an additional Director for Kantara Initiative Europe, the Estonian incorporated non profit trade association that licences Kantara's brand and artifacts from US incorporated Kantara Initiative Inc for promotion in that region.
While on the subject of R&D, as part of KIPI, the DHS signed off on Phase 3 of Exponent's MOB4PACS project using smartphones as PIV cards with NFC and BLE. This is the final phase of this project which sees this fantastic technology ready itself for commercialization.
On the community side of the house:
- the Consent & Information Sharing WG is working towards the revision of its Consent Receipt real world use case demo and its respective Consent Receipt Generator;
- the UMA WG is in advanced preparations to present UMA v2.0 to the 104th IETF meeting in Prague in April to ready it for a standards track contribution;
- the Identity Assurance Work Group is working hard on preparing comments on the Pan Canadian Trust Framework whose overview is out for public review;
- the ID Proofing and Verification Discussion Group is assembling a strong set of use cases into a report to ISO SC27 Working Group 5 later in March in time for the Study Period's findings in Tel Aviv in April; and
- Kantara's liaison with Working Group 5 is seeing increased activity as the international standards drafts covering identity and privacy reach a more developed and mature stage in their development.
As we prepare the privacy session for our friends ID Pro in their education sessions for identity professionals at KNOW Identity in Las Vegas later in March (hurry - there's still time to grab a ticket with the Kantara discount code), we are also setting the workshop agendas and speaking slots for Kantara members at the European Identity Conference in Munich in May and in June the slew of events starting with Identity North in Toronto, then Identity Week UK, EEMA UK, Think Digital Identity UK, Whitehall Media IDM UK, and in the last week Identiverse in Washington DC. If you are attending the EIC in Munich in May, please make sure you arrive a day early and and register here for the Kantara Members Plenary on on Monday May 13th, the day before the Kantara pre-conference workshop and the event opening just after.
'I've really got to join Kantara' must have been a New Year's Resolution for some, because as with all other aspects of Kantara activity, Membership has seen a significant uptick. A big welcome to new members Transmute, Gluu (stepping up from 2 individual memberships), Excelsior Security Solutions, Michael Zygma and Parker Crockford. As well, a big welcome back to Airside Mobile and GEANT who renewed their memberships in January!
February? 'Bring it on' I say 
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As I previewed 2019, at the end of last year, I saw that it marks Kantara's 10th anniversary (June 17, 2009 to be precise). You will see our 10th Anniversary logo adorning a range of our artifacts over the course of the year. Whether you have been in the Kantara community right from the beginning, or just joined us recently, we want to know what you think about us - both where we do well and where we could do better. Please spend a few minutes answering these 10 multi-choice questions in our annual member survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KI_community_feedback. community discounts and planning our participation at Conferences and Events too. Of course our participation is your participation.
Please join me in welcoming new organizational members the Lush Group and Seadot as well as individual contributor Lisa LeVasseur.
And welcome back renewing members in February two New Zealand organizations Sphere Identity and the Department of Internal Affairs, as well as long-serving Board member, the Internet Society and individuals contributors Mary Hodder and John Wunderlich. A great big thank you to you all for continuing your support of Kantara.
Hang on tight folks - it's going to be a busy few months!
Kind Regards,
Colin
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