Liberty Identity Assurance SIG Charter

Group: Cross organizational, vertically focused

DATE: June 11, 2007

1. Description and Goals
The Identity Assurance Special Interest Group has being formed, alongside the Identity Assurance Expert Group, as a public SIG within the Liberty Alliance to continue and extend the original Trust Framework work of the EAP (Electronic Authentication Partnership), the Credential Assessment Framework of the US E-Authentication Initiative, and other industry contributions, into a harmonized, best-of-breed industry standard operational framework for managing trusted credentials across identity federations to foster inter-federation on a global scale, known as the Identity Assurance Framework.

The IASIG’s goal is to provide a public forum for discussion that will allow for feedback into the IAEG, as the IAEG works to provide organizations with a uniform means of relying on digital credentials issued by a variety of identity providers (aka credential service providers) in order to advance trusted identity federation among public and private sector organizations. Interoperability of e-authentication systems is essential to the cost-effective operation of safe and secure systems that perform essential electronic transactions and tasks across industry lines. This public dialogue is very important for gathering use case needs, feedback on proposals, and general marketplace guidance to drive the work of the IAEG.

To accomplish this, this group will be a key review party for the deliverables of the IAEG, providing feedback, input and other relevant suggestions as the IAEG drives toward voting, publication and outreach around their key deliverables.

Members of this SIG have the opportunity to:

• Provide feedback to help shape identity assurance policy for both the public and private sectors.
• Expand markets by promoting wider use of identity credentials.
• Stay abreast of government policy worldwide that will have an impact on identity assurance.
• Discuss the latest technology, standards, and solutions in the e-authentication and identity assurance industry with their peers.
• Get to know public and private sector leaders in e-authentication.
• Identify opportunities to save time and resources in implementing identity federations.
• Participate in all public activities, such as email discussions, conference calls, etc.
• Avoid “re-inventing the wheel” or needlessly duplicating effort by identifying best practices across multiple industry sectors in this globally diverse working group.

2. IASIG Group Structure
The Management Board will appoint a chair (or co-chairs) to lead the work of the IASIG. The Liberty Alliance PMO will assign staff resources to support operations of IASIG (see Resources below). Interactions between the IASIG and the IAEG as well as agendas and timelines will be determined by the respective chairs of the two groups.

Minutes and a roll-call shall be taken at each meeting and posted in the IASIG public wiki area.

3. Resources
Liberty Alliance personnel take care of all meeting logistics, leaving the IASIG group free to concentrate on providing feedback to the IAEG and facilitating public conversation about the work around Identity Authentication. Secretarial, treasury, technical and most administrative tasks are managed by Liberty Alliance Program Management Office (PMO).

4. Dependencies
IASIG will work very closely with the IAEG, who in turn works very closely with every other EG within the Liberty Alliance. Close coordination between both of the Identity Assurance groups will be required so that the public feedback the SIG allows is constructive and timely in meeting the voting requirements and deliverables schedule of the EG.

The IASIG Chair and Liberty personnel are responsible for facilitating any dependencies that may arise on other groups.

5. SIG meetings
Communication is conducted primarily through email and telephone conference calls. Face-to-face meetings may take place in coordination with the routine Liberty Alliance plenary meetings where the IAEG will be meeting, and if necessary, additional face-to-face meetings will be called by the chair and organized independently. If face-to-face meetings do occur, members will incur their own costs to attend these meetings. IASIG will have regular phone meetings, on a schedule determined by the Chair.

6. Communication & Coordination Process
Email discussions will take place on - coming soon

Documents will be posted and maintained in the IASIG area located at wiki.projectliberty.org, and referenced to from the “Public Community” section of the main Liberty webpage (www.projectliberty.org).

7. Memberships
Membership in the IASIG is open to the public.

8. Confidentiality
The IASIG is a public work group with public mail list and conference calls.