2019: June

Owned by Colin Wallis (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 11, 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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It was great! But thank goodness it's over. That's how I would characterize June 2019.

The month started with liaison partner CARIN Alliance's Summit in DC.  Kantara members and supporters were out in force. Thank you LG Software, ID.me, Catherine Schultern, Noreen Whysel and Dr Tom for your support of three of us speaking formally and all of you speaking informally. We had Identity North in Toronto next where Leadership Council Chair Andrew Hughes represented Kantara, followed by the Think Digital Identity for Government conference in London where Kantara Board member ISOC's Robin Wilton spoke brilliantly on data ethics while Kantara member IDCrowd's David Black and I tag-teamed on Assurance.

As we hit the second week of June, Identity Week UK saw presentations from Kantara members IDCrowd and Meeco as well as myself. I had to cut away a day early to head to Brussels and put my Kantara Europe hat on for the Management meeting of the H2020 R&D NGI_Trust consortium, where (after any potential conflicts of interest were avoided) the 38 evaluations done by the Kantara Europe Directors in the previous weeks were stacked up and ranked alongside other 71 proposals evaluated by other consortium partners to draw the top eighteen projects and discuss the way ahead for the next two calls. The level of innovation and sheer range of proposals was simply jaw-dropping. 

Week three of June was birthday week - Kantara's 10th anniversary! - and as with all events in June, Kantara's sessions have been afforded extra time by the organizers to run our video of achievements. It did that 'with bells on' at Whitehall Media's IDM UK conference and EEMA's annual conference the day after. Liaison partner EEMA were especially accommodating allowing us to interrupt proceedings for a cake cutting ceremony as Kantara treated all conference goers to really yummy cake, straight after Kantara's session featuring UMAnitarians Cigdem Sengul and Tim Reiniger and Kantara Consent Receipt's Mark Lizar. Check out the photos on Twitter @kantaraNews

June finished with a great flourish in DC and Identiverse where Kantara members and new DC local staffer Chris Healy manned a display table in the community area of the Expo Hall while Kantara's Masterclass saw ForgeRock's Eve Maler, Catherine Schultern, Kantara-incubated ID Pro's Ian Glazer, MIT's Thomas Hardjono, Identos's Mike Cook, Consent and Information sharing work group's Andrew Hughes and myself walked the audience through the latest status of Kantara's work. All these folks spoke in other sessions and it was especially good to listen to Identos's Alec Law and Mike Cook relate their interoperability experiences with UMA in Canada, Eve and ForgeRock colleague Ashley on 'Real-World Identity Relationships Driving Data Decisioning' and ID Machines' Sal D'Agostino, Chair of Kantara's since archived Identity Relationship Management work group speak on 'The Relationship Lifecycle of Things'. Catherine and Eve teamed up the next day with liaison partner CARIN Alliance to lead 'A protected Digital Identity for the Healthcare sector'  with a play to UMA/HEART and Andrew Hughes drew the shortest of straws to be opening on Friday morning after the conference party to demonstrate Kantara Consent Receipts in action to a decent sized and engaged audience.

If folks reading this feel they aren't getting the value from their Kantara membership they would ideally like, I suggest they reach out to the folks mentioned above to learn how Kantara's work assists their industry profile. 

Overloaded with conferences as it was, I worked or traveled pretty much every day in June. Okay, so I'm a year older every time June comes around, but it really does seem to get busier every year. I know that some of you reading this were on this traveling circus too - it is a widespread phenomenon in our industry. I can't tell you how good it is to reach July (wink). I appreciate that it has not been the greatest starts to July in the US with floods around DC and earthquakes out west. But I love the UK in July - Wimbledon, Formula 1, the Cricket World Cup this year (if you know who is in the finals you might appreciate I'll be keeping close on that) - and if watching any of that becomes boring, watching politics play out sure won't be (wink)..

Exhausted but very very happy with the vibe and progress, we rest and recharge during July. That it's taken me ten days to get this out bears testament to that. But to be fair on myself, Staff also use this time to review and refine the website and wiki, fine-tune our processes and plan the second half of the year. We are already working through our list of 'to do's' that has built up over the last six months. Some changes are subtle but we hope you notice them in due course and feel that they serve you better. Just Contact us to help us make anything better for you.   

A final reminder to take a look at our 10th Anniversary celebration video, Infographic and social Wall here, straight off the homepage of the website (and scroll down).    

This month we welcome new Individual Contributor members Christine Abruzzi and Martin Smith and welcome back corporate members GEANT, MEECO, United ID, USPS and Zentry. Please join me in honoring these members. We thank each and every one of you for your support of Kantara's ethics, ethos, its specifications, R&D Program and Trust Marked Assurance operations.   

On the community side of the house:

  • the Consent & Information Sharing WG (CISWG) continues its call for contributions (see it from the wiki landing page here) for the next build of the specification, and see the existing known implementations here. 
  • CISWG also hosts the Blinding Identity Taxonomy, a joint effort with Hyperledger Indy thank to the outstanding efforts of Paul Knowles and the team at Dativa. That was very much in the news again as Dativa's submission to the UK Parliament was taken up and published. Search for Paul on LinkedIn and pick up this activity and its associated video of the parliamentary session.  
  • the UMA WG continues its call for contributions of UMA profiles and extensions while also fine-tuning the business - legal framework model and preparing a recast UMA submission for IETF#105 in Montreal next month.   
  • hot on the heels of the US federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy on identity credential and access management the GAO just published GAO-19-288 'Federal Agencies need to strengthen online identity verification processes' a need that Kantara can fulfil via its Trust Framework Operations program and its NIST 800-63-3 Rev 3 Class of Approval. Its steward ,the Identity Assurance Working Group (IAWG) is putting the final touches to its report to NIST regarding its learnings from assessments where guidance and clarification would be helpful. The refreshed Overview and Glossary for the Identity Assurance Framework (IAF) is out for public review and comment and welcomes your contribution.  

Summer's here. Enjoy and relax!

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 and Discussion Groups directly on the Leadership Council's Blog. See the list of public groups here.

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

  • Not sure where to find things? Bella, Ruth, Armin, Oliver, Chris and myself are only too willing to assist.  Contact them via email.

Events: See them all here!