Identity Commons is an event supporter of the OASIS Open Standards Forum:Security Challenges for the Information Society next week Oct 1-3 in the UK.

From their website:

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are a major enabler of the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, and manipulation of information and have a major impact on our quality of life, our working conditions and the overall competitiveness of our industries and services. In today's society, information and information access plays a central role, economically, socially and individually.

However, open exchange of information and access to online services also pose challenges and threats. Service providers want to authenticate the identity of individuals requesting access, and determine the resources and services they are entitled to access. Users want their identity and personal data and privacy to be protected adequately, and the confidentiality of sensitive data they are submitting to be respected.

In today's Internet and in many large private network infrastructures, heterogeneity and diversity are the rule rather than the exception. Security infrastructures need open standards and interoperability to scale to the huge deployments that are being rolled out. Many security standards from OASIS and other organizations support a model where identity authentication, access control, digital signature processing, encryption and key management are provided as services that can be distributed and shared.

I look forward to hearing what comes out of this event.