Open Identity Exchange UK Europe

The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is a non-profit, technology agnostic, collaborative cross sector membership organisation. The main purpose of OIX is to accelerate the adoption of digital identity services based on open standards. OIX is working to bridge the gap between the private sector and the government to develop a core framework of high level rules that inform sector specific rules and drive interoperable standards. The Open Identity Exchange UK Europe Chapter was approved by the OIX Board of Directors in 2016 and the Chapter continues to organise its objectives and structure to best serve OIX members in this region. The OIX has worked on a number of projects which attempt to address the key challenges of creating convenient, secure and privacy-enhancing digital transactions. These projects have included The States of Jersey eGovernment Programme, GOV.UK Verify and LIGHTest. Additionally the OIX work on a number of whitepapers which focus on issues and opportunities in emerging identity markets and work to deliver value to the identity ecosystem as a whole.

History

At the beginning of 2015 the Cabinet Office^[1] requested Open Identity Exchange begin a process of exploring the legal, business and pragmatic considerations of creating a self-sustaining UK ‘chapter’ of the Open Identity Exchange. OIX has received a series of grants from the UK Cabinet Office that have been used for the collaboratively funded projects.

An ad-hoc board of advisers was formed of independent, experienced, public and private sector leaders participants to address policy considerations during this transition process.

The Open Identity Exchange Board of Directors approved an OIX Chapters Policy at the end of 2015, allowing the formation of individual Chapters affiliated with OIX for the purpose of furthering the goals and objects of OIX in various local markets. In April 2016 OIX UK Europe Chapter appointed its board of Directors.

Overview of Open Identity Exchange

The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is a non-profit, technology agnostic, collaborative cross sector membership organization with the purpose of accelerating the adoption of digital identity services based on open standards. OIX enables members to expand existing identity services and serve adjacent markets. Members advance their market position through joint research and engaging in pilot projects to test real world use cases. The results of these efforts are published via OIX white papers and shared publically via OIX workshops.

OIX members work together to jointly fund and participate in pilot projects (sometimes referred to as alpha projects). These pilots test business, legal, and/or technical concepts or theory and their interoperability in real world use cases.

OIX operates the OIXnet trust registry, a global, authoritative registry of business, legal and technical requirements needed to ensure market adoption and global interoperability.

Long term strategy

OIX UK Europe is undertaking something unique not replicated elsewhere as it looks to build the idea of consumers having just one identity account, allowing for accelerated and frictionless activity online. OIX will help this develop through a core framework of high level rules that inform sector specific rules and drive interoperable standards. OIX wishes to help bridge the gap between the private sector and the government to help air any issues and problems, with OIX perceived as the ‘curator'. For the OIX, collaboration is key. By collaborating on registration of schemes, certifications and frameworks using OIXnet, it will only help to drive up scale.

Pilot Projects

OIX members work together to jointly fund and participate in pilot projects (sometimes referred to as alpha projects). Projects are defined as small scale, low risk assessments, analysis or tests of interoperable components that address the key challenges of creating convenient, secure, and privacy-enhancing digital transactions. These projects target specific issues that have been identified by an organisation. All projects result in a whitepaper that is published on the OIX website.

Some examples of OIX Projects are:

States of Jersey

The States of Jersey (SoJ) eGovernment programme ^[2]is to be a major business-led transformation programme to implement the eGovernment Model vision that will be led by technology.

The eGovernment model sets out 4 key themes:

• Customer personalisation
• Operational effectiveness
• Trusted identification
• Enabling infrastructure

A fundamental component to support the model is some form of Digital ID for citizens and organisations. SoJ wish to leverage the knowledge gained during the development of the UK Government identity assurance programme to hasten adaptation and adoption for Jersey.

The hypothesis was that the UK Government identity assurance model could be adapted for Jersey with the support of certified UK IdPs and potential identity assurance hub providers, to meet the requirements of SoJ. The hypothesis also considered that this would create an attractive market opportunity in Jersey for one or more of these providers.

LIGHTest

This is a 3 year project that started in September 2016 and is partially funded from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under G.A, No. 700321. The LIGHTest ^[3]consortium consists of 14 partners from 9 European countries and co-ordinated by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The project looks to reach out beyond Europe, to build a global community.

LIGHTest (Lightweight Infrastructure for Global Heterogeneous Trust management in support of an open Ecosystem of Stakeholders and Trust schemes)

The objective of LIGHTest is to create a global cross-domain trust infrastructure that renders it transparent and easy for verifiers to evaluate electronic transactions. By querying different trust authorities world-wide and combining trust aspects related to identity, business, reputation etc. it will become possible to conduct domain-specific trust decisions. This is achieved by reusing existing governance, organization, infrastructure, standards, software, community, and know-how of the existing Domain Name System, combined with new innovative building blocks. This approach allows an efficient global rollout of a solution that assists decision makers in their trust decisions. By integrating mobile identities into the scheme, LIGHTest also enables domain-specific assessments on Levels of Assurance for these identities.

This project will contain at least 2 pilots.

GOV.UK Verify

The UK Government, Cabinet Office joined the OIX at board level, as it began the work on its Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP). Through the OIX Directed Funding programme, a considerable number of projects continue to be carried out under OIX governance, the results of which have helped with the ongoing development of GOV.UK Verify. Work continues as GDS looks at how digital identities can be used in both the public and private sector.

GOV.UK Verify uses certified companies to verify your identity to government. A certified company is a private company that works to high industry and government standards when they verify your identity.

Citizens can currently choose from the following certified companies, giving them choice and control over how their information is used:

• Barclays
• CitizenSafe
• Digidentity
• Experian
• Post Office
• Royal Mail
• SecureIdentity
• Verizon

Once the citizen has verified their identity with their chosen certified company, they can use their account across a growing range of government services without having to start again each time.

GOV.UK Verify is built and maintained by the Government Digital Service (GDS), part of the Cabinet Office. The UK Government is committed to expanding GOV.UK Verify and helping to grow a market for identity assurance that will be able to meet user needs in relation to central government services, as well as for local, health and private ^[4]sector services.

OIX UK worked closely with the British Government’s Cabinet Office ^[5]on developing the GOV.UK Verify Programme.

Members

OIXUK member programme encourages organisations of all sizes to participate, collaborate, and contribute to the success of the OIXUK shared mission.

Executive Members

Barclays

Cabinet Office

CA Technologies

Equifax

Experian

Google

International Airlines Group

LexisNexis

Microsoft

Ping Identity

Symantec

Timpson

Verizon

UK Board of Directors

Don Thibeau

OIX UK Chairman

Don is President and Chairman of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) a non-profit organization of global leaders from competing sectors, including enterprise, data services, telecommunications, consulting services, SaaS, banking, retail and government. OIX has become a center of excellence for the identity trust layer of online transactions serving as a test bed for business, legal and governance policies in the emerging identity ecosystem. Don is also the Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation, where he leads a standards development process for Internet identity. The foundation’s members are industry leaders that collaborate on the development, adoption and deployment of open identity standards.

Nick Mothershaw

OIX UK Vice Chairman

Nick is responsible for the strategic development of Experian’s fraud and identity solutions for both the public and private sectors. The Identity Solutions portfolio includes both traditional ID validation as well as ID verification through challenge questions and document verification.

Paresh Majithia

OIX UK Treasurer

Paresh has been Finance Director for Timpson for over 10 years. He previously worked as Group and UK Finance Director for UCI Cinemas and prior to that with Asda and Woolworths having qualified as a chartered accountant with PWC. As Finance Director and Main Board Member, Paresh has worked closely with owner and Chairman, John Timpson and CEO James Timpson to help the business grow to becoming the UK’s leading retail service provider with over 1400 stores and turnover exceeding £200m.

David Rennie

OIX UK Policy/Secretary

David is Head of Industry Engagement for the identity assurance programme. He leads the UK Government’s engagement with the Open Identity Exchange through which Government Departments conduct jointly funded, collaborative projects to address specific identity challenges.

Emma Lindley

OIX Voted in General Member Representative

Emma Lindley is the Managing Director of Innovate Identity. Emma will help to shape the plans, priorities and operations of OIX UK. Emma’s focus on representing OIX UK’s general membership views is a key commitment. Emma will stand in this position for a year and this is a unique position for the UK Chapter.

Other board members include, Andy Bates (Verizon), Dave Webber (LexisNexis), Graham Hill (Microsoft) and Sarah Munro (Barclays).

Whitepapers

OIX White Papers focus on hot issues and opportunities in emerging identity markets. OIX white papers are driven by the needs of the members but the goal of each white paper is that they stand on their own to deliver value to the identity ecosystem as a whole. OIX White Papers take one of two perspectives: a retrospective report on the outcome of a given project or pilot or a prospective discussion on a current issue or opportunity.

Recent whitepapers include:

• Use of online activity as part of the identity verification ^[6]
• UK private sector needs for identity assurance ^[7]

• Use of digital identity in peer-to-peer economy

• Shared signals proof of concept
• Creating a digital identity in Jersey
• Just Giving and GOV.UK Verify
• Creating a pensions dashboard ^[8]
• Could digital identities help transform consumers attitudes and behavior towards savings?
• Digital identity across borders: opening a bank account in another EU country

Refereces