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InCommon Assurance Program

Subscribe to the assurance discussion list to stay up-to-date as campuses move towards Bronze and Silver.

What is the Assurance Program?

The Assurance Program awards certifications to qualifying campuses that support InCommon requirements for consistent authentication and identity management. These practices determine the confidence in the validity of a user's electronic identity.

Why is it Needed?

InCommon has established the Assurance Program to help service providers reduce their risk by encouraging identity providers to adopt these structured requirements. Some service providers, such as those related to financial aid and federal research grants, will require that campuses prove they are certified for a particular practice set in order to access a federated service.

Currently, there are two sets of practices, or profiles, for which a campus can obtain certification: Bronze and Silver. Bronze is roughly equivalent to confidence associated with a common Internet identity and Silver is similar to confidence required for financial transactions.

InCommon is working on offering the Assurance Program during the first quarter of 2012.

• At the heart of the program is the Assurance Advisory Committee, which will review campus applications and make recommendations to the InCommon Steering Committee regarding certifications. The charter has been approved and the committee membership is complete.
• Interoperability testing has begun to determine how the technical exchange will work. You can review the documentation on the Assurance wiki.

For more information about the details of the program and what the Community is working on, see the Assurance wiki.