Managing Multiple and Dependable Identities

Our daily activities increasingly rely on remote resources and services — specifically, on interactions between different, remotely located parties. Because these parties might (and sometimes should) know little about each other, digital identities — electronic representations of individuals’ or organizations’ sensitive information — help introduce them to each other and control the amount of information transferred.1 In its broadest sense, identity management encompasses definitions and lifecycle management for digital identities and profiles, as well as environments for exchanging and validating such information. Digital identity management — especially support for identity dependability and multiplicity — is crucial for building and maintaining trust relationships in today’s globally interconnected society.2,3 In this article, we’ll investigate the problems inherent in identity management, emphasizing the requirements for multiplicity and dependability. This article’s content is a result of our activities on the RAPID project (the Roadmap for Advanced Research in Privacy and Identity Management; www.ra-pid.org).