Liberty Alliance offers advice on external ID federation

IDG News Service - Having already set forth the technical requirements needed to create a federated identity architecture, the Liberty Alliance Project released guidelines this week for how companies should include business partners and customers in their networks, saying it's crucial for the advancement of Web services.
The group released the "Liberty Alliance Business Guidelines" document at the Burton Catalyst Conference in San Francisco on July 8, outlining how companies should ensure mutual confidence, risk management, liability assessment and compliance when considering wide-scale deployment of federated network identity.
The guidelines come on the heels of the group's federated network-identity technical requirements, released last year, and the second set of recommendations, which is available for public review.
The nonprofit group represents more than 170 companies and organizations working to develop and deploy open, federated network-identity standards. Members include companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc., SAP AG and American Express Co.
The group's open standards for federated identity compete against Microsoft Corp.'s Passport service in the user authentication and identity management arena.
The Liberty Alliance said it believes that the open standards approach will drive the future growth of Web services. Web services are expected to become a $21 billion industry by 2007, the organization said, citing figures from Framingham, Mass.-based research company IDC.
The group claimed that extending access to customers, partners and suppliers is the next phase of Web services and advises companies to put processes in place that guard against losses due to identity fraud and leakage of information.
What's more, it said, companies should determine what parties will bear which losses in a network environment and agree on policies and procedures for compliance with government standards and privacy policies.
More information on the organization's recommendations and technical requirements can be found at the Liberty Alliance Project's Web site. The group is expected to release additional guidelines later this year.