Anonymity and identity are terms that constantly crop up in conjunction with discussions about the Internet. Some aspects, such as greater transparency and efficiency in global competition or even the emergency of entirely new business models, are usually considered positive effects. Among the negative aspects are, in particular, the various forms of Internet criminality – typically linked to the use of hidden, manipulated, false or stolen identities.

The Problems Inherent in Current Identity Management
The constantly growing use of the Internet has long exceeded the borders and limits of individual states and thus more and more demands a clear, trustworthy and efficient identification of the players. The providers of services that require sensitive information, such as account connections, personal or health-related data, access information or mobile telephone numbers, and manage these in an IT system tied to the Internet, therefore invest huge sums of money in what are commonly proprietary identity and access management (IAM) solutions. They do this to protect themselves against security risks while fulfilling strict statutory requirements. The core part of such solutions is usually an identity that is only valid of a respective service and consists of a password and username.

Ever greater numbers of different but also competing services thus lead to identity inflation for users. The latter are often not able to remember the large number of different passwords or they always use the same combination – in any case, the results are always the same: problems for users and increased risk. Added to this are additional instruments, such as cards, tokens, code generators and different login procedures for many services.

SwissSign as a Way Out of the Virtual Identity Jungle
The only way out of this identity inflation spiral is breaking away from the (proprietary) identity management solutions of the past. We must disconnect not only from a particular application (such as is the case with single sign-on solutions) but also from individual service providers. The identity certification of a user must therefore be through a neutral and trustworthy body – in other words, an identity provider.

SwissSign is one of the leading identity providers in Switzerland. A Swiss Post company, SwissSign brings together its own certified competence in the area of security and identity management with the tradition and expertise of the Post in the trustworthy and professional management of (physical) address data.

When one service provider trusts another in terms of the identity of the authorized users there – and when this one in turn trusts the services of a neutral identity provider – a so-called circle of trust is created with the potential of linking further services from other providers. This type of approach is also called a federation concept. One prominent example of this is the Liberty Alliance Project (LAP): http://www.projectliberty.org/. Therefore, the services of one identity provider can be augmented through additional attributes and services from other service providers that participate in the circle (permission based subsequent to receiving the explicit consent of a user) by making further services available.

Are you interested in our SwissSign identity provider offering? Then contact us please!