Impacts of the Privacy and User Experience requirements on the implementation of the Identity Networks based on distributed Hashtrees

Nowadays, a number of public and private organizations have implemented various identity management solutions to manage authentication; authorization privileges of their users within or across system and enterprise boundaries. The idea of using a third party identity provider (IdP) to access a relying party (RP) is not new, and both RP and IdP have much to gain from such solution. A federated identity ecosystem in which RPs and IdPs have to connect only once has further benefits. While deployed identity brokerage systems provide great utility to their participants, it has been noted that the principles upon which they are designed have several security and privacy gaps. Potential shortcomings of federated identity access systems stem from a central observation point, where a ‘honest but curious’ or ‘compromised’ broker may gain unauthorized access to the data. It is clear that federated identity ecosystems need to evolve to address the challenges described.

Faculty Supervisor:

Benjamin Rossman

Student:

Partner:

SecureKey Technologies Inc

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto

Program: