This week I am in Leuven, Belgium to speak at EEMA's eID Interoperability Conference on "Catalyzing an ID Verification Marketplace."  If you are thinking of attending, here is a teaser on my session. 

My session will first remind the audience that the Internet (or the cloud for that matter) is not built with identity baked in.  This requires every Web site or cloud service to do identity for themselves, thus leading to a multitude of redundant registrations, proofing processes, credentials, log-ins etc., driving everyone crazy in the process -- except for the identity thieves who take advantage of this chaos.   

I acknowledge this is basic stuff for the "identerati" out there as we have been wrestling this problem for years. However - the session will get into solutions, which seem closer than ever.

The solution to this problem trends toward individuals having a relatively small number of online authenticators which assert their identity and/or attributes about them to other sites which trust those assertions.  A true marketplace of identity verification is on the verge of being born; consider the low assurance consumer world to the high assurance aerospace and defense world as sources of examples.  This session will focus on what needs to happen to accelerate the adoption of this approach.

The session will allow for discussion of possible incentives that all the parties need - identity providers, relying parties, and users - to make sure that there is something in it for everyone.  Once an ID verification marketplace starts to gain traction, its rate of adoption could surprise all of us.