[WG-Consumer-Identity] Kantara Consumer Identity Work Group

[Bob Pinheiro]

You are receiving this email because you are registered as a Participant in the Kantara Initiative's Consumer Identity Work Group, or you are on the CIWG mailing list.

The CIWG was formed as a continuation of the old Liberty Alliance Identity Theft Prevention Special Interest Group.  The purpose of the CIWG was to focus Kantara interest and resources on helping to enable high assurance consumer identity and authentication solutions for identity fraud prevention on the Internet.  However, due to uncertainty as to how to achieve such goals, as well as low levels of participation and a lack of funding, the CIWG never achieved its purpose.  CIWG has now been inactive for the past year, and the last telephone meeting was held on June 29, 2011.   We discussed on that call whether the WG should disband (meeting notes here).  But because other initiatives were just getting under way at that time that could have an impact on consumer identity, such as the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), it was decided to take a "wait and see" approach before making any further decisions on the future of the CIWG.

Now that a year has passed, it is time to take definitive action to decide on the future of the CIWG.

NSTIC is just now getting off the ground, with a first meeting of the NSTIC Steering Group scheduled for August 2012.  Funding for pilot projects will be announced later this summer.  So in the US anyway, there are now other potential opportunities for those interested in consumer identity issues to have an impact.

Unless there is any reasonable chance that the CIWG can, at this point, define a set of work products and recruit the resources needed to generate such products, I believe it is time to formally disband the CIWG.  This will require taking a vote among the voting Participants of the CIWG, or requesting that the Kantara Leadership Council shutdown the CIWG due to lack of activity.    Another possibility is to convert the CIWG into a Discussion Group.  However, unless there is sufficient interest among Participants to meet from time to time to discuss topics related to consumer identity, this option would not seem to be viable.

If you would like to initiate any discussion on the CIWG's future,  please respond to the list, or to me directly.  Otherwise, unless there is sufficient interest expressed in converting to a Discussion Group, or someone can make a strong case for continuing as a Work Group, I will take steps within the next few weeks to disband the CIWG.

Thanks

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Bob Pinheiro
Chair, Consumer Identity WG
908-654-1939
consu...@bobpinheiro.com
www.bobpinheiro.com