'Will "Federated Identity" services help transform communications and trusted relationships between the public sector and UK citizens and businesses?' One of 5 presentations from guest speakers at Digital Leaders North East's annual review, delivered by Dr Alastair Irons, of Sunderland University.

1. OCTOBER
Will “Federated Identity” services help
Transform communications and trusted relationships
between the Public Sector
and UK Citizens and Businesses?
Dr Alastair Irons
Sunderland University

2. CHALLENGES FROM THE SALON
• Purpose of salon in October was to discuss whether
“federated identity” services would help to transform
communication between the public sector and
businesses
• Whilst the salon covered the benefits of federated
identity services and the potential to transform
communication the debate moved to a broader range of
discussion topics including reservations and risks
associated with federated identity
• Moved onto questions about limited adoption to date
and the broadened the discussion to include issues
around trust, trustworthiness, cybersecurity and digital
forensics in the context of federated identity

3. KEY DISCUSSION POINTS FROM THE SALON
• Federated identity is the ability to establish trust
relationships between various systems to enable the
passing of a person’s electronic identity through
authentication, authorization and privacy assertions.
• Not to be confused with Single Sign On (SSO) – this
refers only to user authentication and as such is a
subset of federated identity.
• Idea behind federated identity is to provide an easier
and more efficient service for users by joining up and
linking services.

4. KEY DISCUSSION POINTS FROM THE SALON
• Salon explored the opportunities afforded by federated
identity as well as the potential risks and concerns
around trust and ethical use of data.
• Work done by the Cloud Innovation Centre in Newcastle
given as an example of data sharing where federated
identity can be tested.

5. SOLUTIONS FROM THE SALON
• Desire to understand, utilise and exploit the
opportunities provided by federated identity in a safe
and secure environment
• Examine in detail the activities undertaken by the likes
of VISA (as a neutral but trusted enabler) and Amazon
(as a neutral broker in the retail environment)
• Examine the issues in federating identity for example in
in the provenance of data, the management of sensitive
information and the trustworthiness of federated
identity management systems

6. SOLUTIONS FROM THE SALON
• Develop strategies for sharing federated data from
public sector to private sector is a safe and secure
manner
• Clarify restrictions on data sharing – for example NHS
records

7. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
• DLNE blog to summarise
• Willingness of participants to get involved in further
research / discussions
• Participants in the salon joined trial of a new discussion
platform – Ambix
• Feed into regional work on cybersecurity
• Trying to identify opportunities for funding to take
issues forward