Draft 

Introduction

As the strategic value of Research and Education Trust Federations ever increases, from time to time it is important to reflect on, then assess and distill what forms the basis for sufficient trust by all participants. On that foundation we can understand gaps and agree to changes that may need to be implemented by various Federation actors in order to sustain trust in them.

What trust do we need to have in Federation? When we rely on Federation, we are partnering with other organizations to do something for us that we would otherwise do for ourselves or forgo altogether. And mostly the latter: Federation makes possible the integration of resources, services, and users across the globe into the myriad ways that the R&E mission is undertaken.

What are the most important expectations of how those partners behave? Is it important to know, fairly promptly, when any of those expectations no longer hold, or is it enough to know that the process by which partners become active in Federation ensures that those expectations are valid?

Below are three short lists of high-level expectations, one for each of three types of Federation actor: an Identity Provider, a Service Provider, and a Federation Operator. What is the gap between these and your expectations of each of them? How would you reframe these so they better express your expectations? Are there any more-detailed needs that must be in this picture, perhaps to be explicitly subsumed within one of the statements below?

Since different specific situations may have higher or lower risk and hence greater or lesser expectations, for this purpose let’s focus on establishing the baseline expectations that should be true of all, or almost all, transactions with Federation partners.

Baseline Expectations of Identity Providers

1. The IdP is trustworthy enough to access the institution’s own enterprise systems

2. The IdP is operated with institutional-level authority

3. The IdP is treated as an enterprise system by institution-level security operations

4. Federation metadata is accurate, complete, and includes site technical, admin, and security contacts, MDUI information, and privacy policy URL

Baseline Expectations of Service Providers

1. Controls are in place to reasonably secure information and maintain user privacy

2. Information received from IdPs is stored only when necessary for SP’s purpose

3. Security incident response plan covers SP operations

4. Federation metadata is accurate, complete, and includes site technical, admin, and security contacts, MDUI information, and privacy policy URL

5. Attributes required to obtain service are appropriate and published

Baseline Expectations of Federation Operators

1. Focus on trustworthiness of their Federation as a primary objective

2. Good practices are followed to ensure accuracy and authenticity of metadata to enable secure and trustworthy federated transactions

3. Internationally-agreed frameworks that improve trustworthy use of Federation, such as entity categories, are implemented and adoption by Members is promoted

4. Work with other Federation Operators to help ensure that each Federation’s operational practices suitably promotes the realization of baseline expectations, as above, by all actors in all Federations