As an extension of Microsoft UK's ongoing support of the UK Government Gateway, the team there have also been working with a range of experts in UK Government and the technology vendor community to come up with solutions that address the challenge of secure Identity Management solutions for citizens and government workers.  From the Microsoft product stable, we have been testing out Windows CardSpace, and it appears to meet some of the needed requirements.

This research was in part supported by the work of the UK Shared Learning Group through the Solutions Sharing Network Program.  Work was carried out in partnership with Derby City Council.  The Identity Services are run by Her Hajesty's Cabinet Office through the Government Gateway.

What is great about the approach that is being taken here is that a CardSpace solution can be deployed to take advantage of a pre-existing Identity Management solution - i.e the Gateway.  This is a positive move at a number of levels including:

• Reuse of existing technology cuts down on overall implementation costs and realises better value from existing investments in the UK Government.
• Interfacing with the UK Government Gateway is a good confidence-building measure - this system already has positive mindshare with UK Citizens - they use the Gateway to enable actions like online tax returns - so moves like this should build more confidence.
• The opportunity to deploy solutions that can use more secure Federated Identity providers is becoming within the realms of possibility.

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