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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Spring is here... but who knew! At least time slew is behind us with Kantara's northern hemisphere community moving forward an hour while our colleagues in the south move back for winter. Certainly, activity levels in Kantara have a spring in their step with that optimistic, anticipatory feel to them.
March saw a continuation of high levels of downloads from our Reports and Recommendations web repository that have been evident since the begining of the year. March saw a high level of renewing members and new members alike. For the 3 months ending March 31st, we welcomed new members iWelcome from the Netherlands, Trunomi from the Carribean, DataFund from Denmark, Reliable Identities from the US, Unify Solutions from Australia, Sphere Identity from New Zealand and Dylan Woodburn as an individual contributor. We welcomed back renewing members New Zealand Goververnment (Dept of Internal Affairs), Nixu from the Netherlands, SecureKey Technologies from Canada, Cirrus Identity from the US and individual contributors Andi Hindle, Mikael Ates and William Nelson. It's great to have you all with us here at Kantara and we look forward to working together with you to advance the industry.
We started the first full week in the month at the TIIME workshop in Vienna. This event really helps Kantara value its engagement with the Higher Ed community. I believe that Kantara is the only non-profit in the digital identity space to sustain a relationship that results in such fantastic knowledge-sharing. The value of this knowledge sharing is how it draws others to Kantara who are eager to both soak up and extend those riches. That aside, for many attendees the highlight was the workshop dinner held under the dome in the renowned Natural History Museum in Vienna. Unforgettable grandeur and splendour. Later in the month, EEMA - Kantara's most active European liaison - hosted me in Brussels at its members Fireside, on a topic close to us all - the future of identity and trust. Three speakers graced us with their perspectives. The stand-out presenter for me being Bart Preneel from Leuven University. His presentation was based on a thought provoking premise that, in the future, security and privacy will turn full circle to be better maintained and assured on local devices rather than cloud based networked services.
The early months of the year give me a great opportunity to acknowledge and thank selected member organizations for their support as I undertake my semi-annual round of 1:1 calls with Directors and Trust Marked Service Providers and Assessors. These folks provide much of the fuel for the monetized engine room of the organization that allows many of you reading this to enjoy the benefits of low barriers to participation in Kantara's working groups and discussion groups, either through their Directors dues or support of Kantara's 'raison d'etre' - the Trust Framework Operations program. As the only global 'non pay to play' consortium in our industry, and in support of our ethics based and mission-led culture, we should remember just how hard a business model it is to operate. It’s a model that Kantara's contemporaries won't even try. Without the Directors, Members, Sponsors and Trust Framework participants stepping up to the plate, Kantara would not exist. It's fitting then that in OWI's recent 'top 100 Influencers in Identity', 14 of them were Kantara members. See them here in Kantara's own press release. Speaking of members, have you completed the Member Survey? Tell us what you would like Kantara to do in 2018 and beyond.
Meanwhile, look out for new deliverables coming out of our work groups. The members-only release of the Service Assessment Criteria for the NIST SP 800-63-3 Guidelines for Digital Identity, for identity & credential service providers is imminent. Thanks again to ID.me for supplying editing resources. And UMA Legal, the sub group of UMA has produced a ground-breaking draft report that adds the 'B' (business) and the 'L' (legal) to the 'T' (technical) that comprises the essence of the UMA specification.
If your organization has something it wants to accomplish, please don’t hesitate to contact me to explore how you can fund work or discussion group activities.
'Spring forward!'
Kind Regards,
Colin
Around the Houses:
Marketing:
You can always find us online: https://twitter.com/KantaraNews and https://twitter.com/UMAWG and https://twitter.com/KantaraCISWG.
- Miss something? See our press releases here.
Want to start a Kantara local chapter in your town? We are happy to help. Just Contact us.
Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:
Consent Management Systems best practice WG has a fantastic turnout for its opening calls. Thank you sponsors iWelcome and digi.me. The Kantara community salutes you for your support.
You can always keep up with the latest news from the Work Group and Discussion Groups directly off the Leadership Council's Blog.
- Join them here
- Consent Receipt v1.1 is being prepared for publication just in time for those last minute preparations for GDPR!
As always our Specifications, Recommendations and Reports are available for download from our Reports and Recommendations web repository.
Not sure where to find things? Staff are only too willing to assist. Contact them via email.
Events: See them all here!
- KNOW identity conference in Washington DC March 26 - 28. Look out for the Kantara panel slated for Monday March 26th 2.40pm comprising members Mary Hodder, Scott Shorter, Tracy Hulver, Andrew Hughes moderated by myself, where we will discuss the topic 'Identity Service Provider Certification: Who cares anyway?'. If you're attending, please come along and join in on the conversation.
- Book travel now for the Kuppinger Cole hosted European Identity & Cloud Conference in Munich for a combined Kantara AGM and European members plenary on Monday May 14th during the day, to give you all enough time to refresh, reset and attend the Blockchain ID Innovation night, and prior to Kantara's own pre-conference workshop the following morning Tuesday 15th that curtain-raises the formal opening of the conference.
- Kantara's first own-brand Privacy Summit for Marketing and Media now May 22nd in London is ready for ticket purchase at £495 or if you are a Kantara member, at 30% discount.