Liberty Alliance Forms Relationships with Six New Standards Organizations

Liberty Alliance Collaborates with Six More Industry Bodies, Cementing Federated Identity's Importance Across Industries

Standards Organizations Join Forces to Address Identity Challenges in the Security, Financial and Mobile Services Sectors

San Francisco, CA, USA. March 18, 2004.

The Liberty Alliance, the consortium developing an open federated identity standard and business tools and guidance for implementing identity-based services, today announced new relationships with six global alliances. Network Applications Consortium (NAC), Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), Open Security Exchange (OSE), PayCircle, SIMalliance and WLAN Smart Card consortium are working collaboratively with the Liberty Alliance, demonstrating that federated identity is a key enabler in everything from mobile payments and on-demand networking to integrating electronic and physical security systems.

"Identity is not an add-on," said Michael Barrett, vice president of privacy and security at American Express and president of the Liberty Alliance. "Many of today's IT limitations exist because identity wasn't adequately built into the foundation of our networks and no one wants to make that mistake in the future. The growing adoption of Liberty's standard clearly demonstrates that federated identity is a top priority across multiple industries."

In the mobile and financial arena, PayCircle (www.paycircle.org) is working with Liberty to combine federated identity and mobile payment expertise to promote new successful business models that generate revenue for service providers and better protect users. PayCircle, which has signed a liaison agreement with the Liberty Alliance, is a consortium defining open, standardized and secure APIs for mobile payments regardless of the payment system.

"The collaboration and cooperation of Liberty Alliance and PayCircle will help guide developers into the Mobile Web Service future," said Hans Wolf, president of PayCircle. "As part of our relationship, PayCircle will provide an integrated Payment Reference implementation using Liberty Alliance state of the art identity management technology."

OMA (www.openmobilealliance.org), the WLAN Smart Card consortium (www.wlansmartcard.org), and the SIMalliance (www.simalliance.org) have also established liaison agreements with Liberty to further expand federated identity's use in the mobile ecosystem. OMA is a global organization delivering specifications for all types of interoperable mobile service enablers, while the SIMalliance and WLAN Smart Card consortium are specifically addressing security challenges in the mobile space.

The WLAN Smart Card consortium focuses on secure mobility management by defining and promoting specifications for worldwide access to wireless LAN networks. "Roaming in security and privacy is a major challenge hampering wireless Internet growth," said Bertrand du Castel, President of the WLAN Smart Card consortium. "The Liberty Alliance framework coupled with smart card authentication provides a roaming environment fostering take-up of WLAN technology by corporations and major institutions in a significant way."

On the other hand, the SIMalliance is addressing the Security Identification Module (SIM) card's role in energizing the next generation of mobile services. "For many of our members, Liberty's work is a continuation of the European Commission projects we did to position the SIM in open environments," said Philippe Vallee, Chairman of the Board of SIMalliance. "The SIMalliance is pleased to support the SIM's extended role in the overall Liberty Alliance identity framework."

In October 2003, Radicchio, a cross-industry initiative for secure m-commerce, chose to contribute all its existing work in the area of mobile data services to the Liberty Alliance for further development. This included its "Trusted Transaction Roaming" platform — t²r — developed with the support of partners like the European Commission and ETSI.

Liberty is More than Mobile

Identity is a foundational element of any relationship — both in the physical and virtual world. As identities become inextricably linked to personal attributes, roles, permissions and processes, relationships and the security to protect those relationships will become more complex.

The Open Security Exchange (www.opensecurityexchange.org) is a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO). Formed in 2003, the global consortium is creating standards aimed at integrating the management of physical and cyber security, delivering best practice guidelines that enable organizations to more efficiently mitigate risk, optimize their security postures and enforce privacy policies. The OSE is composed of leaders in the fields of physical and cyber security management, and its mission is to promote the use of standards for interoperability between physical and cyber security systems, and educate organizations about security management.

OSE (www.opensecurityexchange.org) is an organization tackling the complex challenges of bridging physical and IT security systems, of which federated identity plays a large role. OSE is delivering interoperable security specifications and best practice guidelines that enable organizations to more efficiently mitigate risk, optimize their security postures and enforce privacy policies.

"Strong identity management is a key component of good security management," said Eric Maurice, Chairman and Executive Director of the Open Security Exchange. "OSE hopes to help extend Liberty's vision for federated identity to the physical security infrastructure of end users. In the end, customers will benefit from our collaboration."

The Network Applications Consortium (www.netapps.org) is another organization exploring federated identity's impact on business-critical applications. NAC, a new affiliate member of the Liberty Alliance, is dedicated to improving interoperability and manageability in heterogeneous, virtual-enterprise computing environments. NAC membership represents combined revenues of over $750 billion, more than 50,000 network servers, and more than 1 million workstations.

"Liberty Alliance and NAC share the similar goal of promoting ongoing collaboration and knowledge sharing among end-users, vendors and industry thought leaders," said Fred Wettling, chairman of the Network Applications Consortium and infrastructure architecture manager at Bechtel. "NAC members understand what is needed to manage complex global IT infrastructures, and standards based identity management is a critical element. We are happy to combine our influence and knowledge with Liberty's diligent focus on federated identity."

About the Liberty Alliance Project

The Liberty Alliance Project is an alliance of more than 150 companies, non-profit and government organizations from around the globe. The consortium is committed to developing an open standard for federated network identity that supports all current and emerging network devices. Federated identity offers businesses, governments, employees and consumers a more convenient and secure way to control identity information in today's digital economy, and is a key component in driving the use of e-commerce, personalized data services, as well as web-based services. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations.

If you are interested in seeing the full list of Liberty Alliance members or are interested in becoming a member, please visit us at www.projectliberty.org.

Contacts

Europe
Suzanne Sinden
Ketchum PR
Tel: +44 20 7611 3598
Email: Suzanne.sinden@ketchum.com

North America
Tiffany van Gorder
Ketchum PR
Tel: +1 415 984 6192
Email: tiffany.vangorder@ketchum.com

[Source: http://www.projectliberty.org/press/releases/2004-03-18.html]

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See other details in the news story: "Liberty's Federated Identity Project Supported by Intel and Six New Global Alliances." General references in "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	Liberty Alliance Forms Relationships with Six New Standards Organizations Liberty Alliance Collaborates with Six More Industry Bodies, Cementing Federated Identity's Importance Across Industries Standards Organizations Join Forces to Address Identity Challenges in the Security, Financial and Mobile Services Sectors San Francisco, CA, USA. March 18, 2004. The Liberty Alliance, the consortium developing an open federated identity standard and business tools and guidance for implementing identity-based services, today announced new relationships with six global alliances. Network Applications Consortium (NAC), Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), Open Security Exchange (OSE), PayCircle, SIMalliance and WLAN Smart Card consortium are working collaboratively with the Liberty Alliance, demonstrating that federated identity is a key enabler in everything from mobile payments and on-demand networking to integrating electronic and physical security systems. "Identity is not an add-on," said Michael Barrett, vice president of privacy and security at American Express and president of the Liberty Alliance. "Many of today's IT limitations exist because identity wasn't adequately built into the foundation of our networks and no one wants to make that mistake in the future. The growing adoption of Liberty's standard clearly demonstrates that federated identity is a top priority across multiple industries." In the mobile and financial arena, PayCircle (www.paycircle.org) is working with Liberty to combine federated identity and mobile payment expertise to promote new successful business models that generate revenue for service providers and better protect users. PayCircle, which has signed a liaison agreement with the Liberty Alliance, is a consortium defining open, standardized and secure APIs for mobile payments regardless of the payment system. "The collaboration and cooperation of Liberty Alliance and PayCircle will help guide developers into the Mobile Web Service future," said Hans Wolf, president of PayCircle. "As part of our relationship, PayCircle will provide an integrated Payment Reference implementation using Liberty Alliance state of the art identity management technology." OMA (www.openmobilealliance.org), the WLAN Smart Card consortium (www.wlansmartcard.org), and the SIMalliance (www.simalliance.org) have also established liaison agreements with Liberty to further expand federated identity's use in the mobile ecosystem. OMA is a global organization delivering specifications for all types of interoperable mobile service enablers, while the SIMalliance and WLAN Smart Card consortium are specifically addressing security challenges in the mobile space. The WLAN Smart Card consortium focuses on secure mobility management by defining and promoting specifications for worldwide access to wireless LAN networks. "Roaming in security and privacy is a major challenge hampering wireless Internet growth," said Bertrand du Castel, President of the WLAN Smart Card consortium. "The Liberty Alliance framework coupled with smart card authentication provides a roaming environment fostering take-up of WLAN technology by corporations and major institutions in a significant way." On the other hand, the SIMalliance is addressing the Security Identification Module (SIM) card's role in energizing the next generation of mobile services. "For many of our members, Liberty's work is a continuation of the European Commission projects we did to position the SIM in open environments," said Philippe Vallee, Chairman of the Board of SIMalliance. "The SIMalliance is pleased to support the SIM's extended role in the overall Liberty Alliance identity framework." In October 2003, Radicchio, a cross-industry initiative for secure m-commerce, chose to contribute all its existing work in the area of mobile data services to the Liberty Alliance for further development. This included its "Trusted Transaction Roaming" platform — t²r — developed with the support of partners like the European Commission and ETSI. Liberty is More than Mobile Identity is a foundational element of any relationship — both in the physical and virtual world. As identities become inextricably linked to personal attributes, roles, permissions and processes, relationships and the security to protect those relationships will become more complex. The Open Security Exchange (www.opensecurityexchange.org) is a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO). Formed in 2003, the global consortium is creating standards aimed at integrating the management of physical and cyber security, delivering best practice guidelines that enable organizations to more efficiently mitigate risk, optimize their security postures and enforce privacy policies. The OSE is composed of leaders in the fields of physical and cyber security management, and its mission is to promote the use of standards for interoperability between physical and cyber security systems, and educate organizations about security management. OSE (www.opensecurityexchange.org) is an organization tackling the complex challenges of bridging physical and IT security systems, of which federated identity plays a large role. OSE is delivering interoperable security specifications and best practice guidelines that enable organizations to more efficiently mitigate risk, optimize their security postures and enforce privacy policies. "Strong identity management is a key component of good security management," said Eric Maurice, Chairman and Executive Director of the Open Security Exchange. "OSE hopes to help extend Liberty's vision for federated identity to the physical security infrastructure of end users. In the end, customers will benefit from our collaboration." The Network Applications Consortium (www.netapps.org) is another organization exploring federated identity's impact on business-critical applications. NAC, a new affiliate member of the Liberty Alliance, is dedicated to improving interoperability and manageability in heterogeneous, virtual-enterprise computing environments. NAC membership represents combined revenues of over $750 billion, more than 50,000 network servers, and more than 1 million workstations. "Liberty Alliance and NAC share the similar goal of promoting ongoing collaboration and knowledge sharing among end-users, vendors and industry thought leaders," said Fred Wettling, chairman of the Network Applications Consortium and infrastructure architecture manager at Bechtel. "NAC members understand what is needed to manage complex global IT infrastructures, and standards based identity management is a critical element. We are happy to combine our influence and knowledge with Liberty's diligent focus on federated identity." About the Liberty Alliance Project The Liberty Alliance Project is an alliance of more than 150 companies, non-profit and government organizations from around the globe. The consortium is committed to developing an open standard for federated network identity that supports all current and emerging network devices. Federated identity offers businesses, governments, employees and consumers a more convenient and secure way to control identity information in today's digital economy, and is a key component in driving the use of e-commerce, personalized data services, as well as web-based services. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations. If you are interested in seeing the full list of Liberty Alliance members or are interested in becoming a member, please visit us at www.projectliberty.org. Contacts Europe Suzanne Sinden Ketchum PR Tel: +44 20 7611 3598 Email: Suzanne.sinden@ketchum.com North America Tiffany van Gorder Ketchum PR Tel: +1 415 984 6192 Email: tiffany.vangorder@ketchum.com [Source: http://www.projectliberty.org/press/releases/2004-03-18.html] Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See other details in the news story: "Liberty's Federated Identity Project Supported by Intel and Six New Global Alliances." General references in "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."