Assuring Social and Governmental Identities for Research and Education Federations

Abstract

This thesis describes an Identity Assurance Framework that defines how social and governmental identities can be used in identity federations within the Higher Education and Research sector. We see a huge potential for the use of social and governmental identities in this sector, but only a few implementations with very limited functionality. We survey existing identity federations and their respective Identity Assurance Frameworks to identify obstacles. To overcome these obstacles, we apply a system modelling technique when designing a comprehensive Identity Federation model which supports social and governmental identities. Based on our model, we re-engineer existing Identity Assurance Frameworks to meet the new assurance requirements. Finally, we discuss the feedback we obtain on our Framework, from the IT Services department of our University, with respect to its usefulness in meeting organizational challenges in the use of social and governmental identities.