Pilot Season for Open Identity
by Shiaw-Ling Lai
In a press release published through their website, openid.net, Open ID has announced a large scale pilot project to bring Open ID to the government. No starting date has yet been announced, but once implemented, users will be able to take their Open IDs and log in to pilot programs at the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Sound bites from the release show strong support from some very important sectors of today’s technology industry, and major companies like Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, and Citi have all partnered-in on the project.
“The US Government taking real steps to adopt open technologies has the potential to enhance and simplify citizen engagement,” said Chris Messina, an advocate of open technologies and CEO of Citizen Agency, LLC. “This effort sets in motion a shift in how individuals can interact with the public sector and makes progress on the Obama administration’s promise for a more open, transparent, and participatory government.”
But is this necessarily a good thing? While government transparency and increasing citizen participation and interactivity seem a good thing, it is A LOT of information to make available to anyone just signing in… and there is no guarantee of 100% unassailable identity protection. Not to mention that a large chunk of the U.S. population will probably be resistant to the idea, not just because of the security implications, but also because they may have trouble with utilizing the technology itself.
Just the suggestion is an interesting thought, though, and perhaps even a sign of the changing times. It remains to be seen how well these companies and the government will do to convince us that we need to participate, and that we will be safe.
[reposted from lambodar.com]