Ann Cavoukian, Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner in Canada, has gone public with her support for a new universal Internet identity system and offered her take on the 7 laws of identity, first proposed by Microsoft’s Kim Cameron. Dr Cavoukian’s vision for a safer Internet not only incorporates the establishment of a new identity metasystem, along the lines proposed by Microsoft, but also calls for “embedded privacy”.

Ontario’s Privacy watchdog warned on Wednesday about the growing threat to online users. “The existing identity infrastructure of the Internet is simply no longer sustainable,” said Dr Cavoukian. Given the fact that the Internet was originally created to be anonymous, the fraud potential is extremely high. This is now seen in the proliferation of different types of cyberfraud attacks, prevalent in the modern world. However, in addition to actual financial losses for Internet users, the spread of cybercrime and ID theft leads to the erosion of public trust in online security. For Dr Cavoukian this is a major worry, since it could significantly affect e-commerce in the future.

This is precisely where the new identity layer should come in, according to Dr Cavoukian and Kim Cameron, Microsoft’s Identity and Access architect who originally came up with the 7 laws of identity, now promoted by Microsoft in its new products. The new take on the 7 laws calls for the embedding of privacy-enhanced features during the design stage of programs. It is also intended as a two-way system in which users could prove their identity as required, but will also have the possibility to check the credentials of the organisation that requests it. Among other proposals are the use of the consumer’s own computer to store his/her private data, rather than use large centralised databases. Another significant principle in the proposal is that of “minimal disclosure”, where only the necessary and relevant information is released to complete a transaction, thus minimising risks. Overall it could help secure e-commerce and reduce levels of cybercrime, particularly that relating to “phraud”, ID theft and even spam. Dr Cavoukian also endorsed Microsoft’s “digital identity cards” that are currently being developed as part of the concept of a “virtual wallet”. The new CardSpace framework created by the software giant as part of the identity metasystem will be released as part of Windows Vista.