Mobile partial identity management: The non-repudiable minimal mobile identity model

Abstract

Due to the personal nature of a mobile device, it is seen as a suitable medium for storing personal information and credentials. As a result, the mobile device becomes the owner's identity-on-the-move. There are many situations in which a mobile user must offer a partial set of his identity to be able to use a service. However, only a minimal set of attributes is required by an Identity Verifier to identify a person or to correctly establish the person's role, position or status should be used. Furthermore, the verifier must be sure that the user cannot repudiate his identity later, and the offered identity is valid. In this paper, we proposed, developed and analyzed a mobile partial identity management model that the mobile user can generate his non-repudiable minimal set of his identity. The user can be sure that the verifier cannot obtain any other identity attributes, and the verifier can be sure that this identity profile is valid and the user cannot repudiate it later. The presented model, the NRMI model, is a secure and efficient mobile partial identity management. It can be used in several scenarios and use cases as well as step-by-step identification scenarios and managing identity social groups. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.