|
27 June 2007—Privacy and Identity Management in Europe
– the PRIME Project has just released the second version of
its White
Paper. The document serves as an introduction into and overview
of the PRIME Consortium’s findings shortly after entering the
final phase of research.
Identity Management Systems are currently under development by
various actors such as Microsoft and Liberty Alliance. The implementations
are aimed at facilitating online identification, authentication
and transaction. The broad introduction of Identity Management has
tremendous potential to fill a gap in the current ICT infrastructure,
which lacks an identity layer. Meanwhile, all major actors are aware
that better identification may also pose increasing risks for the
user’s privacy and autonomy. PRIME shows how to counter these
risks.
The new White Paper provides an overview of PRIME’s vision
of Privacy Enhancing Identity Management. It uses easy to understand
scenarios to describe the PRIME Technology. As the reader follows
the fictional character Alice on her way through an online shop,
the use of pseudonyms and credentials is explained. The story also
illustrates how high level requirements such as data minimisation
and user control are integrated into the PRIME Software Architecture.
The PRIME Project is dedicated to a range of issues in Identity
Management, including (but not limited to) standardisation, public
tutorials, and developing prototypes. In a memo
on Privacy Enhancing Technologies the European Commission refers
to PRIME as significant ICT research in the field.
The guiding principle of PRIME is to put individuals in control
of personal data. It follows an integrated approach for privacy
and data protection, starting from maximum privacy. Enforcement
of privacy policies is aimed at, where personal data are being released.
Meanwhile, the user is put in the centre, offering easy abstractions
of privacy, thus facilitating informed consent when personal data
are processed. PRIME offers solutions, but also describes what remains
to be done.
The PRIME White Paper is a must-read for privacy advocates as well
as for those interested in the future identity layer of the Internet.
It is an excellent starting point to dig deeper into the intricacies
of Privacy Enhancing Technologies and Identity Management.
The PRIME White Paper can be downloaded
for free.
For further information please contact prime@datenschutzzentrum.de.
General Information on PRIME:
| · |
Website: https://www.prime-project.eu/
|
| · |
Project duration: March 2004 - February 2008
|
| · |
Budget: about 13 million euro |
| · |
Funding: The PRIME project receives research funding from
the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme and the Swiss
Federal Office for Education and Science
|
| · |
Project partners: Multidisciplinary consortium
consisting of IBM (administration coordination: IBM Belgium;
technical lead; IBM Zürich Research Laboratory, Switzerland);
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from Belgium;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/LAAS from France;
Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein,
Technische Universität Dresden, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität
Frankfurt am Main, RWTH Aachen, Deutsche Lufthansa, and T-Mobile
from Germany;
Università di Milano, Joint Research Centre/IPSC, and
Fondazione Centro San Raffaele del Monte Tabor from Italy;
Universiteit van Tilburg and Erasmus University Rotterdam from
the Netherlands;
Karlstads Universitet from Sweden;
Swisscom from Switzerland;
Hewlett-Packard in the UK; and
Chaum LLC from the USA |
| · |
Contact: PRIME, c/o Marit Hansen, Unabhaengiges
Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz, Holstenstrasse 98, D-24103 Kiel,
Germany |
| · |
E-mail: prime@datenschutzzentrum.de |
| · |
EC Contract No. IST-507591 |
About the PRIME project
Privacy and Identity Management for Europe — or PRIME
— is a four-year research collaboration involving 20 partners
from industry and academia. The project receives research funding
from the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme and the Swiss
Federal Office for Education and Science. The IBM Zurich Research
Laboratory is the technical leader of the project. It contributes
to the development of data-protection mechanisms and privacy-enhancing
authentication technologies that allow individuals to minimize the
amount of personal data to be released.
About the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
The IBM Zurich Research Laboratory (ZRL) is the European branch
of IBM Research. This network of some 3500 employees in eight laboratories
around the globe is the largest industrial research organization
in the world. The Zurich laboratory itself currently employs about
330 people, representing more than 30 nationalities. World class
research and outstanding scientific achievements, most remarkably
two Nobel Prizes, are associated with this lab, which has been in
existence since 1956. The spectrum of research activities at ZRL
ranges from basic science and fundamental research in physics and
mathematics to the development of computer systems and software
to the designing of novel business models and services that are
becoming available "On Demand".
|
