2018: June

Owned by Colin Wallis (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 05, 2018
5 min read

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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I'm writing this as the US enters the week of its 4th July celebrations. Much of Europe is already on vacation and the UK is in the midst of a heatwave. I do feel sorry for folks downunder. I heard that my hometown Wellington New Zealand, woke to a temperature of 3c last weekend and it has been cold in South America too.  

June offers up the last major digital identity conferences before the summer break. Kantara's Track at EEMA's 31st Annual Conference in London June 13-14 was themed 'The rhythm of Kantara' and featured speakers representing each phase of the Kantara lifecycle. Representing new innovative ideas being prepared to be socialized in Kantara, non-member Dr Rachel O'Connell from TrustElevate talked about her idea to develop best practice in the handling of personal data of children and young people. She was followed by Kantara member Adunity (CEO Rupert Graves) who walked us through what needs to be done to clean up the awful mess that Adtech has created with programmatic advertising and how Consent Receipt, a deliverable from Kantara's Consent & Information Sharing Work Group, plays a key role. We finished with Kantara Trust Services accredited assessor member Nixu (Principal Consultant Compliance Bjorn Sjoholm) explaining 'what you need to know' as a service or solution provider to obtain 'trusted service' status using Kantara's flagship Trust Framework and Assurance program as an example, and how your auditor can be your friend as you navigate these waters. Thank you Rachel, Rupert and Bjorn for volunteering your time to allow the audience an opportunity to feel 'The rhythm of Kantara' in the way that you know it. A special thanks also to our friends at Liaison partner EEMA, allowing us podium time at their conference.    

Two weeks later we were at Identiverse in Boston June 24-27 offering a similarly themed showcase with representatives from the User Managed Access, Identity Relationship Management and Consent & Information Sharing Work Groups.  Thank you Eve Maler UMA Chair, Andrew Hughes LC Chair, Sal D'Agostino IRM Chair and Mark Lizar immediate past Vice Chair of the Consent and Information Sharing WG for your fantastic efforts in spite of the venue's technical issues. The big news of the session was ORIGO's announcement following the earlier release of industry information that it successfully trialled UMA with a sample size of 15 million people in the UK Pensions Dashboard project. All credit to Origo, their partners ForgeRock and of course the UMA WG without whose selfless community volunteer efforts to make what some in industry still say is technically impossible, not only possible but demonstrably scaleable. 'Nurture, Develop, Operate - that's what we do' 

A big shout-out also to Cirrus Identity, who were so kind to give up some of its display table in the Expo Hall in order to accommodate Kantara. Having focussed my efforts to have Kantara members Gluu and Cirrus Identity have a spot in the Industry Community area next to our recently incubated friends ID Pro, I forgot to order a place for Kantara itself! Thank you Cirrus Identity! I am always gratified when members publicly acknowledge their corporate affliation with Kantara as Board Director representatives Andre Boysen from SecureKey Technologies and Allan Foster from ForgeRock did during their time on the podium at Idenitiverse.  Thank you Andre and Allan.    

Without question, the highlight for Kantara came on the first night, Sunday at 6pm at the Welcome Reception.  With a drum roll from the band to herald the announcement of something important, the respective Presidents of the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) and Kantara, took to the stage to formally sign the legal documents to transition IDESG artefacts to their new home at Kantara, amidst the unveiling of the IDESG logo straplined with 'A Kantara Trust Mark' on the big screen. You can see both it and the press release here on the slider featured on Kantara's website landing page.  IDESG's committees can continue their great work in Kantara's IDESG Working Group while the IDEF and Registry will sit alongside Kantara's own Trust Marked schemes from its Trust Framework Operations and Assurance. program. The IDESG brand and Trust Mark will continue to be promulgated in the US. It will take a few months to settle, but we sense an air of anticipatory excitement from the IDESG members and non member participants as the brand and assets enter this next phase of development.   

The closing days of the month, in response to public member comments, saw us modify the way in which you download Kantara's Reports, Recommendations, Specifications and Policy documents.  If you have any queries or comments on the revised approach or want to be kept informed about developments on the work you are interested in, please Contact us because we now have no means of contacting you.    

A warm welcome to new Members joining this month - KnowNow Information Limited from the UK, 1Kosmos BlockID from India, and Lubna Dajani from the UK. And welcome home Board Director and Trust Marked component service provider Experian, Cirrus Identity and Wesley Dunnington all of the US as well as Rainer Hoerbe of Austria who is also eGov WG Chair. Thank you for renewing your membership!

Rest and recharge in July my fellow member and non member participant friends. We have lots of new and exciting work ahead. 

Kind Regards,

Colin

Around the Houses:

Marketing:

Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:

  • You can always keep up with the latest news from the Work Group and Discussion Groups directly off the Leadership Council's Blog. See the list of public groups here.

  • Block your calendar: Thursday August 16th, 3pm CET, 2pm BST, 9am US Eastern, 6am US Pacific: eGov WG is hosting a webinar featuring Kantara member the Australian Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) on the world's newest released national Trust Framework, the Trusted Digital Idenitiy Framework. Details coming soon. 

  • Consent Receipt v1.1 is being prepared for an interoperability demo at MyData in Helsinki August 29-31. Thank you contributors Trunomi, iWelcome, digi.me, KnowNow Information, UNLOQ Systems Ltd, Open Consent Group, UbiSecure, John Wunderlich and Associates, Robert Lapes and Andrew Hughes. 
  • Stand by for new news regarding the IRM work group's use of Graphing technology as members and non member participants begin to assemble around this work.  

  • As always our Specifications, Recommendations and Reports are available for download from our Reports and Recommendations web repository - now with frictionless access.  

Events: See them all here!