AMDG Draft 00 -- Charter for an Attribute Management Working Group

(1) WG NAME (and any acronym or abbreviation of the name): The WG name, acronym and abbreviation must not include trademarks not owned by the Organization, or content that is infringing, harmful, or inappropriate.

Attribute Management WG (AMWG)

(2) PURPOSE: Please provide a clear statement of purpose and justification why the proposed WG is necessary.

The purpose of this Work Group is twofold:

  1. To identify the necessary conditions for a comprehensive cross-initiative approach to the attribute ecosystem.
  2. If such conditions can be identified, to induce the relevant parties to create those conditions and to foster the emergence of a shared vision of the attribute ecosystem.

A fundamental prerequisite for the success of the WG will be the active and sustained engagement of representatives from the major communities around attribute management. The greatest risk to success is that the necessary conditions mentioned above cannot be identified or achieved.

(3) SCOPE: Explain the scope and definition of the planned work.

  1. Clarify AM discussions by highlighting the notion of context. The selection of appropriate attribute schema and attribute values varies according to the context in which they are requested or presented. This is a fact, not a criticism.  The vision of a supra-contextual shared definition of attributes is no more than a dangerously attractive mirage. Stripping context inevitably robs the discussion of its essential anchor points in social and technical reality.
  2. Seek broad agreement on the semantics of attribute metadata.  Shared metadata semantics (including context-sensitive metadata) is an essential precondition for the meaningful exchange of attributes.
  3. Conduct, review and circulate an environmental survey of the dozens of groups and activities in the attribute management space and map out how they relate to one another, where they are orthogonal and where they overlap. This is difficult work at best, even with all the right parties engaged in the process and committed to the goal. However, without this background information, there is no hope of achieving the WG goal of identifying the necessary conditions for a comprehensive cross-initiative approach to the attribute ecosystem.
  4. Define, champion and implement a workable model of effective, sustained communication and coordination between the major active participants in the developing attribute ecosystem.  

(4) DRAFT TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS (NA)

(5) DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS: Other Draft Recommendations and projected completion dates for submission for All Member Ballot.

Each of the points listed under scope imply, among other things, the production, review and formal approval of a document or documents.

(6) LEADERSHIP: Proposed WG Chair and Editor(s) (if any) subject to confirmation by a vote of the WG Participants.

TBD

(7) AUDIENCE: Anticipated audience or users of the work.

The anticipated audience for the documents produced by this Work Group are the major parties involved in creating and using the emerging attribute ecosystem.  Since the goal is a shared vision and approach across initiatives, it will be essential to reach and persuade as broad an audience of that kind as possible.

(8) DURATION: Objective criteria for determining when the work of the WG has been completed (or a statement that the WG is intended to be a standing WG to address work that is expected to be ongoing).

This Work Group will target producing a document on the defintion and utility of the concept of identity attribute context (item 1 under Scope above) within 6 months of inception. It will target 18-24 months overall to develop a full V1.0 set of documents, facilitating the development of multiple independent draft implementations as appropriate during this time. This targeted duration and other aspects of this charter (except the IPR policy stated below) are subject to review, amendment, and extension as approved by the Kantara Leadership Council.

(9) IPR POLICY: The Organization approved Intellectual Property Rights Policy under which the WG will operate.

Kantara IPR Policy - Option Liberty

(10) RELATED WORK AND LIAISONS: Related work being done in other WGs or other organizations and any proposed liaison with those other WGs or organizations

(11) CONTRIBUTIONS (optional): A list of contributions that the proposers anticipate will be made to the WG.

(12) PROPOSERS: Names, email addresses, and any constituent affiliations of at least the minimum set of proposers required to support forming the WG. At least 3 proposers must be listed. At least 2 of the proposers must be Kantara Initiative Members - current members list

TBD

BACKGROUND MATERIAL

Refactored set of Recommendations from the AMDG Final Report

  • Define the concept of attribute management context and demonstrate how essential it is to specify context in any multi-party discussion of attribute management
  • Conduct an environmental survey of groups and activities in the attribute management space
  • Establish formal liaison with the OASIS Trust elevation Technical Committee and the the OIX Attribute Exchange Working Group so that the various efforts are harmonised, synergistic and do not overlap
  • Work with ISOC 'Internet Attribute Infrastructure' initiative and the Business Cases for Trusted Federations (BCTF) DG to develop a commonly agreed roadmap to further develop attribute management and a set of guidance and best practice to assist implementers and deployers.
  • Promote the development of catalogs or registries of specific sector attribute sets (i.e. extensions), lists of authoritative sources for attribute sets, protection and sharing of attributes (including privacy), and the metadata used to describe attributes
  • Initiate cross-party work on means of expressing relying party needs with respect to a level of confidence in an identity attribute, or a set of identity attributes. Define the components that constitute a 'LoC' for attributes and to confirm the need to differentiate this context from the context of identity proofing and credential strength that is applied to 'LoA' of identity
  • Determine how Attribute Management Working Group findings can be brought back into the ongoing development of Kantara assessment frameworks