Smartphone Identity

Full Title

What is the best way to construct systems that give users the ability to carry Identity information in their mobile Digital communications devices?

Context

"Around the world cellular connectivity is more ubiquitous than clean running water. " is how Phil Vachon starts his discussion of "The Identity in Everyone's Pocket" an article in the Communications of the ACM. This requires development of technology solutions for the creation, storage and verification of digital credentials in a manner that respects the user's needs and desires. This page is a summary of that article as it impacts developers of applications running in those three environments.

The goal of essential all Authentication of Identity is the Authorization of access to some resource that is important to the holder of the Credential. In the real-world a credential will have some means for identification of the user together with some attributes that are possessed by the user, such as the authority to driver a car or access state benefits.

Inclusion

• Their is always a tension between using the latest new security feature and providing support for the widest range of customers possible.
• A similar tension exists between the commerial push to sell a new product versus support for legacy systems.
• Succesful ecosystems try for a balance between support for the existing communities with encourage growth that will improve the overall health of the ecosystem as it moves into an uncertain future.

Creation

The issuer of the user credential will need to have the trust of both the holder and the verifier of the credential, each with very different requirements as addressed below.

Storage

The User Experience on their Smartphone of acquiring, retentions and release of the information from the credentials on their smart phone will determine the rate of adoption of any new technology. The Technology of the smartphone and its operating system will determine the limits on both the user experience and the security of the storage of the credential. While each type of smartphone will have its own working set of technologies, the three actors will all need to agree that those technologies will be appropriate to the levels of privacy, security and user experience. Likewise the application that uses those technologies will need to use them in manner that will provide real levels of security, privacy and user experience..

"The goal is simple: Make it as hard as possible for attackers to steal credentials and use them at their leisure. Let's even make it difficult for users to clone their own credentials to share with other users. In addition to this protection, let's ensure that adding extra factors such as biometric authentication provides a strong assurance of who the user is." .

Verification

The Relying Party adoption will determine the adoption of the technology. The reader of the data in the Smartphone may involve another human or be fully automated depending on the type of Authorization that the user is seeking.