The Kantara Initiative announced its approval by the U.S. Government Services Administration as a Trust Framework Provider program certifying levels of assurance one, two, and three non-crypto – non-PKI, says Joni Brennan, executive director at the Kantara Initiative.
This announcement follows the recent Office Management Budget memo to U.S. chief information officers which requires levele of authentication one certified credentials be accepted by U.S. government Web sites within 90 days of the first Trust Framework Providers final approval. The memo also stated that sites should be enhanced or upgraded to accept levels two and three non-crypto certified credentials afterwards as well.
The Kantara Identity Assurance Accreditation and Certification Program aims for the adoption of the Trust Framework model as the means to build a public-private partnership to assure trust in the identity-based experience to end users, relying parties and federation operators. Kantara’s assessors perform assessments of credential service providers – also known as Identity Providers – based on the Kantara Initiative’s Identity Assurance Framework.
This move is one of the first that’s in line with the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. “Consistent with the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, the federal government has pledged to be an early adopter of credentialing solutions certified through Trust Framework Providers,” said Jeremy Grant, who is leading the implementation of NSTIC as senior executive advisor for Identity Management at NIST.
The Kantara Identity Assurance Accreditation and Certification Program assesses applicants against its criteria ensuring, amongst other things, alignment with the NIST 800-63 Levels of Assurance and grants successful candidates of the program the right to use the Kantara Initiative Mark, a symbol of trustworthy identity and credential management services at specified Assurance Levels.
Kantara is also working to certify identity providers, Brennan says. There are a few undergoing the Kantara program with final certification expected to be announced soon. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/digitalidnews-4.gif)
