Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Research brings new results in the domain of identity-as-a-service

GERMANY: The research project "eID Connect", led by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology under the registration number 2076918ED, adds security and usability to all OpenID based web services.

"Identity-as-a-Service" is the main delivery concept which has been selected to manage digital identities. Rather than the traditional identification with username and password, the authentication method is strengthened by the introduction of an additional factor: the new electronic identity card (nPA) or a hardware security token, like the CmDongle.

After a development stage of 16 months, the FZI Research Center for computer science along with the companies CAS Software AG, fun communication GmbH and WIBU-SYSTEMS AG – all located in Karlsruhe – have announced a first prototype. The outcome of the research is a complete infrastructure based on the OpenID standard: tamperproof virtual identities prove for instance useful for verifying the age of website users when it is about restricting on-demand video streaming or other contents download to a certain portion of the population only.

The architecture is offered in the SaaS modality by the provider for mobile computing applications. The prototype is available for testing purposes upon request.

Via an OpenID server, users can create their digital identity themselves, which can then be supplemented with data from the new ID card or a CmDongle. The user receives digital identity credentials, which he can use in combination with the real electronic identity card, the matching CmDongle or the pair of username and password. The infrastructural design was developed in a way that information such as name, age, address, and therefore the transgression of a certain age, can be verified.

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