gregh  2007-07-12 20:57  digitalidentity  identity  idm  infocard  openid   

If you're not following the digital identity space, you're really missing out. Things are absolutely hopping. In fact, given my limited window to watch, I have a very difficult time keeping up.

Microsoft's InfoCard standard is taking off. And because Microsoft has shared the specification, lots of people are working with it. Novell's Higgins Project is doing a lot. Other projects, such as Firefox extensions, are similarly doing good work. The goal of much of this work is to allow users to control the release of their information online, and also to know what information it is that they're releasing.

OpenID, the bastion of user-centric identity is very hot. Integration with InfoCards is underway. User-centric identity systems allow a user to specify what their identity looks like and to control where it lives.

Finally, there's a large community of companies built up around this space. There's been a need for these technologies for a long time, and they're finally starting to see the light of day.

This is just a high level overview of some of the very hot issues I've been following. I'm sure I'll be writing more about these issues in the future.