JISC Access Management Team

Notice that BT seems to have taken a lot of flack over its test of Phorm , which matches adverts to users’ web habits. Advertisers will probably argue that examples of such tools allow them to offer better aligned services to their prospective customers – users may well wonder where the line is drawn regarding the gathering of data about their online habits.

In the UK Federation, the line is already firmly drawn. Any user accessing resources is identified to that publisher by a random string. It’s a different generated random string for the user accessing each publisher so there can be no danger of deductive matching up of identities.

That element of protection may not seem a big deal at the moment but protection and ownership of one’s online identity will be the big issue over the next year – all sectors will no doubt come under intense scrutiny, particularly as individuals will become much more aware and savvy of the issues and principles involved. Obviously the commercial sector will bear the brunt of such examination, but UK education will receive its fair share of attention eventually. Fortunately, the move to federated access management sets up a sound basis for the protection of learners identities online, while allowing scope for the degrees and types of personalisation that publishers and users want. Users (nominally institutions) determine how much info (in attributes) to release, resource providers determine how much info they require. The worst that can happen, is that nothing happens. No unpermitted exchange of data. But unpermitted does need a little unpacking. Institutions really do need to make learners aware of their information policies. Its probably not the first question on most fresher’s lips yet, but one day…………..