Attribute-based Authentication and Signatures in Practice

For the past decade the NREN community has been building and championing (federated) identity management ecosystems based on attributes. This has led to great advances in online identity. At TNC 2013 our colleague Roland van Rijswijk-Deij has given a presentation about decentralised attribute-based identity management using the IRMA system. Since then many developments have taken place, including: 1. IRMA has moved from an academic research environment at Radboud University to an independent (non-profit) foundation, called Privacy by Design; the foundation is now responsible for further development of the technology and for its deployment. 2. Back in 2013 an IRMA implementation was available on a smart card. Since then the emphasis has shifted entirely to smart phone implementations. 3. IRMA has been designed initially for attribute-based authentication, but very recently its ecosystem has been extended with attribute-based electronic signatures. 4. The foundation has established connections with (currently) two identity federations, namely SURFconext and iDIN; the latter is operated by the banks in the Netherlands and can be used by anyone with access to internet banking. The foundation is expected to join eduGAIN as a Service Provider before the end of 2017. This presentation will elaborate on these developments.

Speakers

• Joost van Dijk SURFnet B.V.