Global standards consortium OASIS has formed a technical committee that will propose a set of standardized protocols for assuring an elevated level of trust in electronic transactions. Among the committees members are the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the government of New Zealand.

The technical committee will respond to the suggestions of several governments, says the charter statement, including the U.S. government's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.

NSTIC proposes creation of an online identity ecosystem in which two types of private sector intermediaries together would verify the identity and eligibility of an Internet user wishing to conduct a secure transaction, such as accessing sensitive information. Identity providers would provide a credential, such as a downloadable certificate, verifying that a person is who he says he is, while attribute providers would store characteristic information about that individual--things such as age, for use when accessing age-appropriate online sites.

The OASIS technical committee charter says it will examine trust elevation techniques already being implemented in the public or private sectors, as well as methods in development or identified in theoretical models, and assess how effective those efforts are in creating trusted online transactions.  

The committee's work will culminate in recommendations about particular methods, including specifications of the data services, substantive data exchange patterns or models, and message exchange patterns or models. The committee will not favor one data format or schema over another, the charter says, and will be vendor-neutral and product agonistic.

For more:
- go to the OASIS Electronic Identity Credential Trust Elevation Methods (Trust Elevation) Technical Committee webpage

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