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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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.
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 16th – 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.
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 work 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. 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.
- 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 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.
- As always if you have a query or question, staff are only too willing to assist. Email them on staff@kantarainitiative.org
Events: See them here! https://kantarainitiative.org/calendars/
- Next up is ISO SC27 in Hamilton, New Zealand in April, then IIW and EIC in May. And stay tuned for something special for September.
Cheers!
Colin