STORK: Architecture, Implementation and Pilots

Abstract

Who one is on the Internet turns out essential once sensitive information is exchanged or transactions of value are carried out. Electronic identification and identity management provide the solutions. Governments are important players in the area, having a tradition of providing qualified means of identification of their citizens. However, migration to electronic identities often developed as national islands that are based on one country&3x2019;s domestic legal, administrative and socio-cultural tradition. Once the citizens are crossing borders electronically, these islands need to get connected and interoperability becomes an issue.

The project STORK is an EU Large Scale Pilot driven by 17 EU/EEA Member States and the European Commission. The project promises to bridge national eID islands by developing and testing common specifications for electronic identity interoperability. Taking the existing national infrastructures as a basis, models have been developed for the cross-border interoperability framework. The framework is tested in six realworld pilot applications.

This paper describes the project STORK. It discusses the interoperability models that have been developed. These are the “proxy model” that introduces national identity gateways and the “middleware model” that is limited to a client to service provider relationship. Rationales for selecting a particular model are given and the principle architecture of STORK is discussed.