The Cyberspace Committee has established a Task Force to address the legal issues faced by all participants in federated identity management processes. The goals of the Task Force are to:
1. Identify and analyze the legal issues that arise in connection with the development, implementation and use of federated identity management systems;
2. Identify and evaluate appropriate legal models to address these IdM issues; and
3. Develop model terms and contracts that can be used by the various parties.
The Identity Management Legal Task Force will hold its next meeting in London on December 10-11, 2012 to focus on U.S. - EU legal issues.
Additional Information:
This Task Force was established in January 2009 to address the legal issues related to federated identity management, and to develop model agreements and commentary for such systems. It is working with industry groups, including the Kantara Initiative (http://kantarainitiative.org/), a federated identity management standards developing organization
Federated identity management systems are designed to allow the use of online authentication credentials across different organizations. From an end-user's perspective, the result of such federation permits "single sign-on" or seamless access to resources located in different information systems without compromising the security of any of those systems.
Technical standards, products and services to support federated identity systems are gaining support in many different sectors including financial services, health care and government, but the lack of a clear framework for managing the legal issues is currently a stumbling block impeding further adoption of federated identity management technologies.
This Task Force will contribute to the creation of a legal framework by identifying different federated identity management business models and focus on relevant legal issues and selected contractual approaches to address those issues, including the development of one or more model agreements together with commentary.
Tom Smedinghoff of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP serves as chair of the Task Force.
We are asking all those interested in participating to sign up for the Task Force by sending an email to Lauren Shores (lauren.shores@americanbar.org). This will also add you to the Task Force Listserv for the project.
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