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Baseline Expectations Health Checks

Under the guidance of the InCommon Assurance Advisory Committee, the InCommon community has adopted a set of Baseline Expectations for Trust in Federation. The intent is to improve interoperability among InCommon Participants and ensure that the Federation has a common level of trust by establishing expectations that all Participants agree to meet.

In addition to the expectations themselves, the community has adopted processes by which InCommon Participants and the InCommon Federation operator keep metadata up to date and keep one-another accountable, including:

• Automated checks of metadata by InCommon to give feedback to each Participant about their entities
• A process for reaching community consensus on practices that meet the expectations
• A process for Participants to raise Baseline Expectations-related and other concerns and get them resolved

InCommon performs periodic metadata health checks to share Baseline Expectation adoption progress statistics with participants.  To find out how you and your peers are doing, check the Baseline Expectations Adherence by Organization list.

If you would like to find out details about your organization's Baseline Expectations status, please contact help@incommon.org

Baseline Expectations Dashboard - July 17, 2019

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About Baseline Expectations

The InCommon Community Trust and Assurance Board hosted a webinar on October 11, 2018  to review Baseline Expectations. The webinar provides an overview of the Baseline Expectations initiative, schedule, and a demo of the Federation Manager, the software Participants use to manage metadata.

Download the slides  (PDF)
Recording

Foundational Documents

Baseline Expectations for Trust in Federation - This The core Baseline Expectations document establishes three short lists of expectations expressed at a high level, one for each of three types of Federation actor: an Identity Provider, a Service Provider, and a Federation Operator.

Baseline Expectations of Identity Providers

1. The IdP is operated with organizational-level authority
2. The IdP is trusted enough to be used to access the organization’s own systems
3. Generally-accepted security practices are applied to the IdP
4. Federation metadata is accurate, complete, and includes:
   1. contacts in metadata (technical, administrative and security)
   2. MDUI information
   3. privacy policy URL
   4. a federated error handling URL
   5. an HTTPS link to a logo for the IdP

Baseline Expectations of Service Providers

1. Controls are in place to reasonably secure information and maintain user privacy
2. Information received from IdPs is not shared with third parties without permission and is stored only when necessary for SP’s purpose
3. Generally-accepted security practices are applied to the SP
4. Federation metadata is accurate, complete, and includes:
   1. contacts in metadata (technical, administrative and security)
   2. MDUI information
   3. privacy policy URL
   4. an HTTPS link to a logo for the SP
5. Unless governed by an applicable contract, attributes required to obtain service are appropriate and made known publicly

Baseline Expectations of Federation Operators

1. Focus on trustworthiness of their Federation as a primary objective and be transparent about such efforts
2. Generally-accepted security practices are applied to the Federation’s operational systems
3. Good practices are followed to ensure accuracy and authenticity of metadata to enable secure and trustworthy federated transactions
4. Frameworks that improve trustworthy use of Federation, such as entity categories, are implemented and adoption by Members is promoted
5. Work with relevant Federation Operators to promote realization of baseline expectations

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Process to Maintain Baseline Expectations by InCommon and its Members - This document defines several processes by which InCommon and InCommon Participants will hold each other accountable for meeting Baseline Expectations.