e-Infrastructures for identity management and data sharing: perspectives across the public sector

Abstract

The problems of identity and personal-information management over the Internet remain unsolved, despite much debate and a number of competing initiatives. Could an identity infrastructure become a shared service for use across sectors, operating in a simple and secure manner and protecting the privacy of personal information? The OII, with the support of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Office of the Information Commissioner, organized a forum in June to provide an opportunity to identify common identity management requirements of public sector agencies. The intention was to help move towards a common vision of what government agencies saw as an appropriate identity management and data sharing infrastructure, and of how actors in the UK could take steps towards it. This discussion paper is a summary by OII Visiting Fellow Mary Rundle of the discussions that took place during the forum