Creating a European Identity Management Architecture for eGovernmentwww.guide-project.org

 

PROJECT S YNOPSIS

GUIDE will conduct research and technological development with the aim of creating anarchitecture for  secure and interoperable e-government electronic identity  services andtransactions for Europe. The project’s approach is multi-disciplinary and includes technology,procedural and policy development across Europe. GUIDE consists of 23 organisationsfrom13 countries. GUIDE’s vision is to enable Europe to become the global leader of e-government services through the creation of an open architecture for identity authentication.

PROBLEM

The 2003 Como Ministerial declaration on eGovernment observed that “the past few yearshave seen significant developments in electronic identity and authentication systems. Yet inmost countries their take-up and deployment is still in a relatively early stage. Cross-border issues of interoperability should be addressed taking account of legal practices and culturaldifferences”. This declaration recognises that progress must be made in identity managementto prevent businesses and citizens signing up to identity services out of necessity and toassist governments faced with poor take-up of services of expensive implementations.Meanwhile identity theft is growing into a massive security and economic issue.

The Ministerial declaration further acknowledges that identity management is not just atechnical issue, “The deployment of online public services should fully take into accountpersonal data protection rules”. Numerous solutions have evolved each with strengths andweaknesses, however, most have focused only on offering a technical architecture, whileneglecting many business, social, legal and process aspects of identity management. Thus,the problem persists.

AIM

Many electronic identification and authentication initiatives for access to public services havecome up over recent years but they are fragmented and thus inhibit seamless and efficientoperation of the services they are designed to enable. There is a need for a coherent pan-European approach.

GUIDE’s vision is to:

• Enable excellence in eGovernment services in Europe, and to

• Establish Europe as world leader in the provision of eGovernment solutions.

By establishing an open identity management architecture for eGovernment solutions, GUIDEwill enable governments to offer higher quality services to businesses and citizens reducingadministrative costs whilst fighting the negative consequences of identity theft. GUIDE willaddress issues relating to the dramatic improvement in the efficiency of inter-administrationcommunication to harness the full potential that pan-European process integration brings.

  GUIDE (IST-2003-507495) is part funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme

 

Creating a European Identity Management Architecture for eGovernmentwww.guide-project.org

 

TECHNICAL APPROACH

The technological objectives  of project GUIDE lead to the achievement of a standardisedidentity management architecture. Specifically GUIDE’s technological approach is:

• To select existing and emerging technologies as modules of an identity managementarchitecture and to evaluate and/or propose ways to enhance them, and to

• To develop, test & validate a technical architecture supporting secure interconnectionbetween administrations (A2A); of administrations to businesses (A2B), and,administrations to citizens (A2C).

The technologies within the identity management environment are fragmented. They areconfusing to government customers, difficult for citizens to use, and are inflexible and highlyuncertain for technology developers. Typical technologies that are frequently deployed in thisfield are single-sign on, SSL/SAML, biometrics, PKI, etc.GUIDE will focus on the requirements of administrations through multi-disciplinary researchinto complex, adaptive systems with the development of open platform specifications andharmonisation frameworks. GUIDE’s intention is to create a European ‘dominant design’.

This will happen through a strong focus in a number of technical areas:

• Open System Architecture. This will be based on a set of research activities concernedwith analysing, reviewing and selecting all relevant available knowledge on identitymanagement solutions.

• Data Security, Protocols & Permissions. This will require a thorough analysis of existing and new ways of transporting and storing data within the GUIDE framework,without risking loss of data, or sending data to unauthorised persons.

• Protocols & Standards. This activity will aim to define them in order to supportinteraction with existing legacy systems and to develop and test identity authenticationprotocols and interoperable components.

• Connectivity & Infrastructures. Support interaction with existing/legacy systems that areowned by individual data providers.  Consideration will be given to making the systemssolutions vendor agnostic so that interoperability can be maintained. Suitable adaptationtechnology will be assessed and techniques will be derived to develop rapid integrationmechanisms to provide open interfaces to the provider systems.

EXPECTED RESULTS

GUIDE specifically aims to create the ‘backbone’ for eGovernment services. This backbonedepends on how the identities of citizens, businesses and governments are managed. Basedon this backbone any subsequent development phases will focus on the creation of peripheralapplications and systems in conjunction with the GUIDE identity management solution.

The main emphasis will be on the deployment of research, development and innovationactivities. Yet the methodology underpinning these activities and its cyclical character willresult in a minimum of three specific large-scale demonstrations of identity management

GUIDE (IST-2003-507495) is part funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme

 

Creating a European Identity Management Architecture for eGovernmentwww.guide-project.org

 

solutions for eGovernment. All these will join together to create the foundations of the openarchitecture for eGovernment for Europe.

KEYWORDS

eGovernment, Identity Management, Security, Socio-economic policy, citizen engagement,interoperability, authentication

PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR

Name: Ms. Lia Borthwick (BT)Project Office Address: c/o Ms. Deemple Tailor 

GUIDE Project OfficeUniversity of SurreyGuildford, Surrey, GU2 7XHEngland, UK

Tel: + 44 208 587 8227Fax : + 44 208 587 8227E-mail: lia.borthwick@guide-project.org

PARTNERS 

British Telecommunications Ltd UKSiemens Switzerland SwitzerlandVisa International Service Assoc. (EU) UKCeTIM Nederlands/GermanyCrealogix SwitzerlandELCA SwitzerlandBudapest University of Economic Sciences HungaryPriceWaterhouseCoopers NederlandsCyota IsraelDeCon ApS DenmarkEesti-Taani Kommunikatsioon EstoniaInfonic UKModirum Oy FinlandNetsmart SA GreeceTissat SA SpainSwiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) SwitzerlandUniversity of Surrey, School of Management UKEuropean Institute of Interdisciplinary Research (EIIR) France Athens University of Economics and Business GreeceErasmus University, Rotterdam NederlandsCambridge University UKSofia University BulgariaDL Legal UK

  GUIDE (IST-2003-507495) is part funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme