Heading to DC for Internet Identity Workshop East

The best place in the world of identity to be next week is Washington, DC, for IIW–East. I want to talk with people about (a) the future of personal data property laws and (b) data portability in the public sector.

I go to unconferences like IIW for the identity-focused brainpower. We’ll have the architects behind projects like OpenID, OAuth, Open Social, Portable Contacts, Activity Streams, Information Cards, XRD, XRI, XDI, SAML, DiSo, The Pamela Project, Higgins Project, CardSpace, Shibboleth. Industry groups like the Identity Commons, Liberty Alliance, OASIS ID Trust and the ITU-T Focus Group on IdM send thought leaders.

Two more IIW events follow this year: IIW-Europe, October 11 in London, and IIW #11 in Mountain View, California, November 9-11. They continue our community’s conversation that leads to builds better person-centered digital identity systems.

So far I see early-bird signups from Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft, Oracle, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Johns Hopkins University, Gartner, Cisco, Orange, AARP, the State of Connecticut and federal agencies. What a great mix.

There’s a race to be the keeper of your online identity by many of the largest Internet companies (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Twitter), by financial institutions like banks and credit card, by government agencies (IIW was co-founded by Utah’s ex-CIO), and by those who provide your Internet (mobile, cable, and telephone companies). Skype is in a pretty good position to compete if it choose to.