Cet Competing e-ID providers creating a Market

Issue/Topic: E-ID Business Ecosystem

Session: Day – Monday – Session 3 - B

Conference: IIW10 May 17-19, 2009 this is the complete Complete Set of Notes

Convener: Douwe Lycklama

Notes-taker(s): Chiel Liezenberg

A.	Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

B.	Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

E-id business ecosystem: competing EID providers work together in creating an EID market

The problem No single identity provider will ever get 100% market share, leaving users and relying parties with fragmentation in solutions. They have a reciprocal interest: users want to use their credentials in as many as possible places and relying parties want to be able to accept as many users as possible. A world where every identity provider is a ‘walled garden’ of end users and relying parties will not lead to massive adoption and usage. Also it is unclear what the business model behind identity will be. Everything seems ‘free’ and dealt with in barter arrangements. The solution EID providers need to cooperate, leading to interoperability. This interoperability is not only on technology but especially on functionality and business aspects. Lessons can be learned from the payments world where a scalable ecosystem has developed (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, credit transfers). Such an ecosystem is build up around a ‘scheme’ where all the agreements for business interoperability are made. Providers define their ‘cooperative space’ on top of which all can build their competitive propositions. End-users and relying parties each have their own service providers who interoperate. Service providers cooperate because they feel that by working together a bigger market will be realized. The case In The Netherlands recently a scheme for EID has been developed by market parties, where the government is a launching customers for identifying businesses represented by their employees. The scheme also supports various assurance levels for the EID providers. The scheme has oversight and the EID providers must comply with scheme rules. Action Have a look at OIX, who are addressing similar issues, but more from the trust side and less from the business model angle.