2019: October

Owned by Colin Wallis (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Nov 04, 2019
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 typing this the day after the October time slew period has ended - the two week period where Europe's clocks go back one week before North America's. The chairs of Kantara's work groups will be happy to see the back of it because inevitably we lose valuable meeting time.  It seemed that we managed pretty well this Fall, with only very minor upset. Well done the Leadership Council (and the WG Chairs that comprise it) for good management (wink). 

October was a hugely busy month of travel for me personally as your Exec Director. There’s more to come in November, tho' not quite so intense as October.  

October continued the good news that September delivered to Kantara.  It's more the norm in recent months. Is it that our 10th anniversary awareness galvanized longstanding intent into definitive action? Maybe. Is it that the OMB's M-19-17 circular to US federal agencies in which conformance to NIST 800-63-3 is reinforced?  Quite possibly. It's well known in federal circles that self attestation is not given much credence, and that Kantara is the only third party assessor and approver of a transparent, community developed 63-3 scheme and class of approval.  Whatever it is, it is seeing Kantara staff very very busy with prospective member enquiries and proposals and requests for Kantara engagement from industry - both federal and state in the public sector along with private sector too. I do hope it won't be too long before we can share those with you.

The month began with IIW 29 in Mountain View with great demos on EduGAIN, Gluu Gateway and Transmute ID with Kantara UMA and Kantara Consent Receipt from members GEANT, Gluu and Transmute Industries respectively. There were great presentations from Kantara work group participants @gffletch with his legendary UMA 101 class (so gratifying to see a full room of interested folks not seen before) and @justin_richer on OAuth xyz that takes the profiling work done to create OpenID Connect and Kantara UMA together with other learnings, to work towards an OAuth 3.0.  Fincity's Erik Lamb and I attempted to a 'Consent Receipt for Financial Services' session that suffered from projector challenges. Nonetheless all IIW materials - Kantara related and others - are here. 

I had to cut short my attendance at IIW 29 to attend the Board's F2F meeting in Board Member ForgeRock's offices in downtown San Francisco with a near full attendance in person and remote. It was an intense but fulfilling meeting where key decisions were taken on Kantara's 2020 strategic direction. You'll see some structural changes coming in the form of all-member ballots that will pave the way for this next exciting phase of Kantara's development as it reinforces our mantra 'nurture, develop, operate' in its open and inclusive community participation format.  Thank you all for supporting our mission, ethics, ethos and values.

After a long flight via Taipei, I arrived in Singapore for the IDENTITY WEEK ASIA conference on October 8-9th 2019.  As I mentioned last month, the conference organisers have made the very most of my offer to help out/fill gaps.  It was very valuable with several follow ups from AsiaPac organizations interested in Kantara, one in particular looking at membership level+ engagement. 

The week after LC Chair Andrew Hughes and I were in Paris representing Kantara and its Category C liaison to ISO /IEC JTC 1/SC 27/ Working Group 5 (Identity Management & Privacy) meetings. We presented results of the Study Periods for Consent Receipts and Records as well as Identity Proofing and Verification.  If you haven't yet seen the breaking news on that, it is that a New Work Item - Consent records - information structure - was proposed for national body ballot. The accompanying 'working draft 0' comprises the section headings from Kantara's Consent Receipt and contributions from Kantara's original participants together with those from around the world and signals 'the end of the beginning' as Andrew aptly put it. Seeing them taken up by a treaty organization like ISO sees the achievement of Kantara's core ambitions with its open specifications.    

Kantara members and supporters @iWelcomeCompany 's @EstherHoeksema, @ForgeRock's @GuruAllan, @NixuTigerTeam 's @MartinSandren, @Meeco_Me's @katrynadow, @iglazer and @LubnaDajani were all presenting at Consumer Identity World in Amsterdam. What a blast! A special big shout-out to @iWelcomeCompany for your invitation to a nighttime canal trip and lovely meal afterwards. Thank you! 

Thankfully, my 5 week travel burst ended there and the last week of October was spent at my UK home catching up on sleep, work and 'life' in equal measure (wink).

It won't last long however as my bag is already part-packed for Whitehall Media's IDM conference in London this coming Wednesday where I am speaking on the controversial topic of government IDM programmes. Kantara generally, and myself personally, have been exposed to a considerable range of them and we are constantly asked to 'contrast and compare' them as we see them from our global independent viewpoint.  I suspect there will be no shortage of controversy this time either (wink).  Not that I will be around long enough to hear it because a few hours after speaking I am 'on the road again' to Brussels to speak at EEMA's legendary ISSE conference in Brussels. @Ubisecure 's @osantolalla has prepared a new video of the Consent Receipt in operation with Consentua's hypothetical 'paper cup shop' demo that I will show in my introductory orientation slides, and we are delighted to welcome @NixuTigerTeam 's @MartinSandren to share the podium together with @KantarNews staff Ruth Puente presenting the 2nd call for NGI_Trust grant funding.

The following weeks see me in Blackpool, DC and Montpelier Vermont.

How could three places be so different yet attract requests for Kantara engagement? I'll reveal what I can when I update this blog next month!  

This month we welcome a new corporate member Turning Point Corporation preparing for assessor accreditation in the Identity Assurance Program and new individual contributor member Lorrayne Auld. And we welcome back several Individual Contributor members; Silvia Knittl from Europe, Chris Olsen, Sal D'Agostino and from the US.  

Get ready for the end-of-year sprint. My sense is that it is going to be massive..     

Kind Regards,

Colin

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