Liberty Alliance To Roll Out Liberty Identity Assurance Framework

PRESS RELEASE

(Sarasota, FL) Feb 12 - Liberty Alliance, the global identity community working to build a more trustworthy Internet for businesses, governments and people, today announced that it will introduce the Liberty Identity Assurance Framework (IAF), the corresponding accreditation and certification program, and the business opportunity they represent to members of the financial services community on March 5 at the BITS & FSTC Summit in Sarasota, Florida.

As part of the panel discussion "The Next Frontier in Identity Assurance," Brett McDowell, executive director of Liberty Alliance, will highlight the business and consumer benefits identity federations and standardized identity assurance levels provide in the financial services industry, demonstrating how banks are combining the IAF standard with existing processes and infrastructure to open new short and long-term revenue streams.

The Identity Assurance Framework defines the service assessment criteria (SAC) for the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), widely used by governments and other identity federations today. The SAC covers technology requirements (credential management), organizational requirements (common organizational criteria), and verification requirements (identity proofing), and goes on to define the IAF accreditation & certification program Liberty Alliance will operate to ensure businesses and their partners have a standard for getting certified to a common set of identity assurance criteria.

"We are honored to be invited to participate in 'The Next Frontier in Identity Assurance' panel, where attendees will understand how the combination of the compliance standard and accreditation program outlined in the IAF brings the uniform identity assurance ecosystem to fruition after years of investment by financial services, government, healthcare and other industries," said McDowell.

About the Identity Assurance Framework Developed within Liberty Alliance under the leadership of organizations that include BT, Citi, Fidelity Investments and the US GSA, the IAF removes the need for organizations to "reinvent the wheel" each time they need to make trust decisions about the acceptance of identity credentials when building and expanding identity systems. The IAF is available at http://tinyurl.com/9hbf4g

About the March 2009 BITS & FSTC Summit The 2009 BITS & FSTC Summit: Solutions Through Collaboration, is taking place from March 3 " 5 at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota, Sarasota, FL. More information about the Summit is available at http://tinyurl.com/d8j9qp