Title: NIST NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY; “INFORMATION SECURITY - AN ONTOLOGY OF IDENTITY CREDENTIALS, PART 1: BACKGROUND AND FORMULATION”

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology; “Information Security - An Ontology of Identity Credentials, Part 1: Background and Formulation”

This document has been developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in furtherance of its statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA of 2002, Public Law 107-347). It is a draft version that has been prepared for use by federal agencies. It may be used by non-governmental organisations on a voluntary basis and is not subject to copyright.  

The scope of the proposed standard is divided into the following sections:  

1. Section 1, Introduction, provides the purpose, scope audience, and assumptions of the document and outlines its structure

2. Section 2, Overview of Identity Concepts, identifies the characteristics or dimension of identity that can be used to categorise credentials

3. Section 3, The Structure of Credentials, describes the structure and requirements for physical and logical credentials

4. Section 4, Survey of Identity Credentials, this section categorises key credentials by their purpose e.g. documents for travel and discusses the properties, procedures and inherent issues in using these credentials

5. Section 5, Identity Credential Standards, describes and provides references to the most important U.S. standards for primary and secondary identity credentials including some international standards

6. Section 6, Identity Credential System Models, describes a typical model for a credential lifecycle and discusses the role of Information Technology in the lifecycle

7. Section 7, Trust and Security, describes how the level of trust in identity credentials is related to the level of security applied to issue the credential, and to authenticate its use

8. Section 8, Case Studies of Identity Documents, discusses properties and usage of common identity documents

9. Section 9, Miscellaneous Topics, discusses related topics that potentially fall under several sections 

10. A Glossary, contains a list of key definitions referred to or pertinent to this document

The draft standard is comprehensive and covers much of the work discussed in FIDIS D2.1, but concentrates on the use of identity in the context of Information Security. As in the ISO documents, the glossary of terms defined in the NIST standard only covers a small proportion of those discussed in FIDIS D2.1.