24 May, 2006 - 5:26pm

Aldo Castañeda interviews Netmesh's Johannes Ernst, Sxip's founder and CEO Dick Hardt and Nokia's John Kemp in the second half of this 30 minute user-centric identity podcast on: whether government should be involved, how the protocols compare, and if we're at a turning point of interoperable momentum.

The panelists all agreed that government has a role to play in issuing claims, as they are trusted to make certain types of assertions. However there needs to be a high level of privacy protection in place so that the government is unaware when a user is releasing their credentials. This would be similar to the real world in which the government doesn't know when users are using their driver's licence for identity verification.

The panelists concurred that there is movement towards more interoperability between the protocols such as with Microsoft Infocard, Sxip/DIX, and Liberty Alliance all supporting SAML. However Dick and John noted that we probably won't know when the tipping point is until we've passed it and that it's unlikely to happen until there is actual widespread adoption and use of identity exchanges on the Web by users.