Enhancing consumer privacy in the Liberty Alliance identity Federation and Web Services Frameworks

Abstract

Internet usage has been growing significantly, and the issue of online privacy has become a correspondingly greater concern. Several recent surveys show that users' concern about the privacy of their personal information reduces their use of electronic businesses and Internet services; furthermore, many users choose to provide false data in order to protect their real identities. Identity federation aims to assemble an identity virtually from a user's personal information stored across several distinct identity management systems. Liberty Alliance is one of the most recognized projects in developing an open standard for federated network identity. While one of the key objectives of the Liberty Alliance is to enable consumers to protect the privacy and security of their network identity information, this paper identifies and analyzes possible privacy breaches within the Liberty identity Federation Framework and Liberty identity Web Services Framework. Proposals for improvement in both these frameworks are discussed. © 2006 Springer-Verlag.