The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has announced the creation of the ETSI Industry Specification Group for ‘Identity and access management for Networks and Services’ (ISG INS) to develop a common industry view on Identity Management (IdM) protocols and architectures, relating mainly to networks and services for the Internet of the future.
The Group will focus on architectures and protocols that are the key to new networks and services by capturing the results of IdM research and development activity and formulating an industry consensus.
Much of the input to the group will be derived from European Union 7th Framework Project (FP7) R&D activities on Identity Management with a specific focus on networks and services, languages for access control and privacy policies. The Industry Specification Group plans to create a series of commonly agreed Europe-wide specifications, which can be further developed by standardization groups such as ETSI and 3GPP™ as formally adopted standards for European or global use.
At the first meeting of ISG INS, Amardeo Sarma (NEC) was elected as Chairman and Ricardo Pereira (Portugal Telecom) and Peter Scholta (Deutsche Telecom) as Vice-Chairmen. Membership of the group currently consists of two network operators (Deutsche Telekom and Portugal Telecom), two manufacturers (NEC and Nokia Siemens Networks) and two technical institutes (Fraunhofer Institute and Waterford Institute of Technology). This membership is expected to grow rapidly, as participation is open to all ETSI members, as well as to non-members of ETSI subject to signature of a participation agreement.