WASHINGTON — ATIS today announced a new initiative on Context-Aware Identity Management to help service providers leverage the vast wealth of context-aware information to make identifying users and devices (and granting them access to authorized services) easier and more secure. Context-aware information refers to dynamic situational data such as location, proximity, environment, access network type, user profile and more. Identity management (IdM) refers to how service providers identify, authenticate and provide users and devices access to a range of services they are authorized to use. ATIS brings the two together to shed light on how the increasing wealth of context-aware information the network delivers positions service providers and enterprises to develop increasingly sophisticated IdM capabilities.
It is estimated that an average user has more than 100 online accounts associated with many identities (email accounts, telephone numbers, social media accounts, web domains, etc.). Today, users are authenticated by using passwords, biometrics and other identifiers. The burden of managing so many accounts and identifiers has become overwhelming. It becomes increasingly complex as more applications will need to operate across industry sectors and vertical markets. What if this abundance of contextual information could be applied to creating a highly robust set of IdM solutions that could leverage situational awareness factors, such as your location, proximity to other users or devices, environmental data or user characteristics. This contextual-based solution would also reduce the need for users to continuously manage and reset identifying information. Further, data derived from many context-aware sources would be more difficult to manipulate by unauthorized parties.
“Bringing context to current identity management methods delivers an incredible form of intelligence to current network capabilities,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller. “Looking ahead we see huge increases in new sources of contextual information, which makes ATIS’ work in this area timely. While much research on context-aware services exists, ATIS is taking it to the next level. Our goal is to not only spur innovation in identity management, but also to learn how context-based identity can be enhanced by factors including analytics and artificial intelligence.”
This ATIS initiative will specifically explore the dynamic area of context aware IdM to (1) identify next-gen context-aware attributes that can contribute to IdM, (2) develop a framework that applies contextual awareness to IdM in the ICT (and across industries); (3) discern the key benefits and complements to current methods, and identify the evolutionary path(s) from current IdM approaches; and (4) determine what standards and collaborative activities will advance this capability.
About ATIS
As a leading technology and solutions development organization, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) brings together the top global ICT companies to advance the industry’s most pressing business priorities. ATIS’ 150 member companies are currently working to address 5G, cyber security, IoT, the all-IP transition, network functions virtualization, smart cities, big data analytics, cloud services, device solutions, emergency services, network evolution, quality of service, billing support, operations, and much more. These priorities follow a fast-track development lifecycle – from design and innovation through standards, specifications, requirements, business use cases, software toolkits, open source solutions, and interoperability testing.
ATIS is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ATIS is the North American Organizational Partner for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a founding Partner of the oneM2M global initiative, a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as well as a member of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL). For more information, visit www.atis.org.
