The Jericho Forum, as many IT professionals will know, is an independent IT security expert forum that has been a leading voice in terms of security and electronic collaboration.
Simmonds was at the event to take part in a panel session, as well as discuss the forum's latest initiative on identity management, building on a set of 'identity commandments' it released earlier in the year.
“Identity is now a fundamental issue in the world of security,” he told Infosecurity, adding that the issue as it affects the IT security industry means that any user of the internet needs to be sure that the person or organization they are interacting with is who they say there are.
To assist in this regard, the Jericho Forum is proposing the creation of a digital identity that internet users can buy for a modest fee at their local Post Office and then 'build' on the ID by adding authentication from various organizations they know and trust.
Simmonds says that the forum is discussing the proposal with a number of like-minded organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US, as well as other parties.
In connection with this, the forum is in the process of creating a steering group to create what it calls an 'identity eco-system' that will support the technical, policy, legal and operational aspects of an electronic identity.
The identity eco-system, Infosecurity notes, builds on a set of 'identity commandments' that the Jericho Forum published in May of this year comprising a set of principles, including the fact that all core identities must be protected to ensure their secrecy and integrity.
In addition, the commandments state that identifiers must be able to be trusted – and that the authoritative source of identity will be the unique identifer or credentials offered by the 'persona' representing that entity.
If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the UK government originally proposed the creation of an electronic ID card similar to the successful one that Belgian citizens have enjoyed for several years.
That UK project died awhile back owing to civil liberty issues, but Simmonds says that the Jericho Forum's proposal for an electronic identity will be completely independent of government and commercial consideration, as well as existing only in cyberspace.
“Identity has to be independent and anonymous, as well as being user-centric”, he said, adding that it is only through this independence that the initiative will take off.