[OpenID] owning one's own identity

[John Kemp]

On Sep 9, 2009, at 8:07 PM, Johannes Ernst wrote:

> Opening up the list of accepted IdPs has some weird consequences  
> when interacting with the government (as opposed to others)
>
> E.g.:
>
> What about an IdP in Russia or China?

What services would the US government offer someone whose identity is  
asserted by a foreign IdP?

> Would the US government accept identities asserted by an entity  
> outside of the country? What about Iran? Before the revolution? And  
> then what?
> What about a multi-national headquartered, in, say, New York? That  
> serves some of its identities from a data center in Mexico? If it  
> now moved headquarters to Bermuda, what then? What if it was  
> acquired by a Chinese company with strong ties to the Chinese  
> government?

I imagine that there are some services which the government might  
offer to people regardless of their citizenship. And others which  
would depend on particular attributes of the individual (such as her  
nationality, or social security number). And probably still others  
that would only be accessible to identities which were asserted by a  
particular set of IdPs.

Oh, and I'll bet the details aren't all worked out yet ;)

Cheers,

- johnk

>
> Full post:
> http://netmesh.info/jernst/big_picture/openid-and-government
>
> _______________________________________________
> general mailing list
> general at lists.openid.net
> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general