Hello everyone
This is the running update from the Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact Colin at kantarainitiative dot org.
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July is a month where the northern and southern hemispheres are at their extremes. As I sat in my back garden on a hot and sunny summer's day I was reminded by this as a friend posted a picture of Mount Ruapehu in the center of New Zealand's North Island fully laden with snow, ready for the ski season. I had planned a few days off to ski in Austria in early April, but of course it was cancelled as so many of our business or personal plans were, wherever we were in the world. I partially made up for it last week taking a few days off in Munich to be with extended family. It's a beautiful city in a beautiful part of Germany so it was well worth the hassle of the travel that even on this short distance seemed as tiring as a long-haul. Maybe it's breathing in your own air for so long. Masks were mandatory all through the airport, on the plane for the flight, in the arrival airport, on public transport, in shops and anywhere crowded, but the level of compliance was a high and . in out the other end of course. And we came equipped with anti-bacterial gel and wipes, not that we needed them since the airline, all shops, restaurants etc made them readily available so in terms of personal risk, although heightened, it felt manageable at all times. July 2020 may go on record for the highest number of virtual conferences and webinars in a single month in our community. I don't know how it was for you, but together with Identiverse, One World Identity's KNOW, other industry associations and company webinars, I found my calendar often triple booked on some popular hours. It was great to see so many Kantarians presenting and on panels - from Healthcare to mDL to consent to the state of digital identity in the US to the sate of digital identity in the UK.
Last Wednesday I was privileged to be able to offer Kantara's insights to the UK's Liberal Democrat party which were well received, on 3 questions posed to a representative group of industry entities: Standards - we'll never have "one standard" so what is the goal?; Current UK challenges & threats - where does the UK fall behind and what might happen if we keep that way?; Wishlist - if you could demand anything of the UK government what would it be? Our responses go to assist Lib Dem parliamentarians in understanding the challenges around digital identity and to inform future policy. Meanwhile the UK continues to await the government's response to the Call for evidence on the matter nearly a year ago, into which Kantara contributed.
Kantara kicked off its own Summer webinar series in July too with the Assurance Program's 'What what does it take to be approved as NIST 800-63-3 conformant?' and and the UMA Working Group's 21st Century Health Information Interoperability + user Control'. Both of these were well presented and well attended. A special thanks to speakers ID.me's Blake Hall, KUMA's Ray Kimble, NIST's David Temoshok, HIE of One's Adrian Gropper and Identos's Alec Laws, wonderfully supported by Staff and in particular Ruth Puente, who helped with both sessions. Summer's not over yet so stand by for other announcements!
With many vacation plans reset to staycations, the working groups were more active and more well attended than is usual for this time of the year. Kantara's three Information Sharing Interoperability Working Group project streams made good progress, with the externally drafted Personal Data Receipt Framework being given its first showing, before it is formally contributed for peer review, study and comment. It was a similar story with the AdvCIS (Advanced Consent & Info Sharing) developing a draft Consent Receipt v1.2 and the Intentcasting project getting into a steady rhythm of meetings.
July was also the month that most comments on draft standards being developed in ISO SC27 WG5 were due, and Kantara. Kantara's Board SDO Liaison sub committee were hard at work, in particular, on ISO TS 27560 - Consent record information structure, where there are opportunities at both a high level and detailed level, to contribute to the direction of this work. If you members would like to contribute to ISO SC27 standards in Digital Identity and Privacy technologies, members you can do that via Kantara's formal liaison with ISO. Meanwhile the larger Identity Assurance work group that is the steward for Kantara's Identity Assurance program, has completed the Service Assessment Criteria for NIST 800-63 C Federation and Assertions and is now embarking on all level 3 criteria - 800-63-
UMA also had well attended meetings as it continues new work on the profile with the interim working title of 'Wallet/Relationship Manager'. UMA's last meeting of the month did a pulse check on implementations and was pleasing to see news of an additional one. The FIRE WG always has early drafts seeking informal comment and this month s no exception with the Mobile Assurance Specification.
As always the Identity Assurance work group had a full plate of work this month. It just narrowly missed its target to have the Service Assessment Criteria for NIST 800-63-3 IAL3, AAL3 and FAL3 - with grateful thanks to ID.me for its sponsorship of the unenviable editing task. That it has completed this work, while also submitting comments to the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework Credentials (Relationships and Attributes) component bears testament to just how hard these volunteers work, to selflessly support the development and maturing of the global ecosystem.
Selfless volunteered hard work is not just restricted to the IAWG but stretches across all of Kantara's Groups. In some cases efforts are spread across years and is heavily front-loaded, so much so that we often forget to celebrate the result much later in time. One of those cases involves UMAtarian Tim Reiniger and his efforts to help lawmakers in the Commonwealth of Virginia to see the necessity to tweak the Digital Identity law such that it better covers the range of ecosystem actors such as Trust Framework operators. That work began in 2018 and finished yesterday July 1st, when it came into force in State law. Thank you Tim!
Kantara Europe, together with its H2020 NGI-Trust partners, completed its short list selection of new proposals seeking grant funding in the third and final call of NGI_Trust. At this time of year, consortia form for grants in 2021 and Kantara is blessed with multiple offers to join a consortium bidding. Unfortunately we could not resource all requests coming to us, but we remain hopeful that all the proposals we were invited to consider, find success.
In technically challenging circumstances, the Secure Technology Alliance (STA) hosted the 3rd of its 4 Webinars on the Privacy and Trust aspects of a future mDL ecosystem on June 25th, led by Kantara's President Matt Thompson, supported by members John Wunderlich reviewing the mDL standard ISO 18013-5 through a privacy lens and Exponent's Christopher Williams looking at Trust-related aspects in the transaction communication flow. Despite the challenges our folks performed brilliantly. Thank you!
While on the subject of webinars, Kantara's own Summer Webinar series is taking shape with the first Webinar announced for July 15th - what does it take to be approved as NIST 800-63-3 conformant? This has only been open for registration a few days and the quality and quantity of registrants is truly humbling. Stay tuned for other sessions to be announced in coming weeks. Interested to be involved? Please Contact Us.
June saw us welcome new corporate member Human Colossus Foundation from Switzerland, new Individual Contributor member Mark King from the UK. Providing your financial support allows Kantara to further its mission and optimize benefits back to you.
June also saw renewals from Organization members Digital Transformation Agency Australian Government, United States Postal Service (USPS) US federal government executive branch, Australian/Belgian personal data specialist Meeco, and the UK personal data software innovator, KnowNow Information. and Individual Contributor member Barry Hieb. Thank you for everything you do to support Kantara!
Onwardsworking group approved. In addition, the Assurance Program itself continues its internal development project to make it even more globally reputable than it already is. Given the criticality of digital identity in the current world crisis, it's perhaps not surprising that we have seen none of the traditional summer vacation slow-down and we look forward to making announcements about more CSPs attaining the coveted Kantara Trust Mark later in the year.
Kantara Europe was busy as usual with coaching of existing projects and settling in new projects selected in the final call and working with a large consortium on a new funding bid for 2021. Kantara’s Educational Foundation made further progress on its policy framework.
July saw us welcome a new liaison - Digital Identity New Zealand, the industry association for digital identity in that part of the world. For me personally it's great to be able to share Kantara's experiences and to learn from DINZ in return, since a lot has changed in the 5+ years I have been away. With agencies from both the Australian and New Zealand governments as members, Kantara is increasingly well represented downunder. Individual Contributors renewing in July were Dr Tom Sullivan and Wesley Dunnington. Thank you for your continued support!
While on a more personal note, July is a month where the northern and southern hemispheres are at their extremes. As I sat in my back garden on a hot and sunny summer's day I was reminded by this as a friend posted a picture of Mount Ruapehu in the center of New Zealand's North Island fully laden with snow, ready for the ski season which this person knew I would be envious. I had planned a few days off to ski in Austria in early April, but of course it was cancelled by COVID as were so many of our business or personal plans, wherever we were in the world. I partially made up for it last week however when I took a few days off in Munich to be with extended family. It's a beautiful city in a beautiful part of Germany so it was well worth the hassle of the travel that even on this short distance seemed as tiring as a long-haul. Maybe it's due to breathing your own air for so long! ;-( . Masks were mandatory all through the airport, on the plane for the flight, in the arrival airport, on public transport, in shops and anywhere crowded, but the level of compliance was high. And we came equipped with anti-bacterial gel and wipes, not that we needed them since the airline, all shops, restaurants etc made them readily available so in terms of personal risk, although heightened, it felt manageable.
Onwards as we traverse another month in these challenging and constantly changing times!
Kind regards
Colin
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