Talk:Identity management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term, "Identity Management," is often mistakenly interchanged with the specific solution classes that fall under the Identity Management category. For example, it is not uncommon to hear people say things like, "We need Identity Management so that our users can reset their own passwords". This supposes that Identity Management is synonymous with Self-Service Password Reset. You may also hear people say things like, "If only we had Single Sign-On, we would be able to disable all of an ex-employee's accounts simultaneously when s/he is terminated". This seems to incorrectly assume that Single Sign-On also includes Central Deprovisioning and a central Identity Repository. While combinations of Identity Management solutions are often (and necessarily) deployed together, one does not necessarily embed the capabilities of the other.
I'm finding the abbreviation IM not as often used as IdM, plus, there is a confusion with Instant Messaging. Rather than change it though, I wanted to get others' impressions. BWatkins 22:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm hearing this term more and more often in social computing to refer to the complexities of managing multiple identities socially--like work vs home vs religious vs family etc, and how these overlap and mingle online. I wonder if there needs to be a disambig? --Andicat 13:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I personally feel that the article's August 17th, 2006 revision has clouded the definition of the concept. The newly presented views hardly do IdM justice, neither in coherence nor in completeness. Additionally, the author of the new installment neglected to cite sources for his/her views. Researching the Identity Management scene quite a lot myself, I will look into changing this soon.
Regards, NGNeer.
I am also into the evaluation of Identity Management solutions. As per my understanding, The name "Identity management" typically means the right person having access to which he is permitted to. This infers the prevention of identities being stolen,typically happenning through password sharing. Further, right implementation of identity increases the accountability with respect to the jobs. The employee self service option may merely be treated as an added feature to the identity management solutions available in the market.
Thanks, Sainath
Identity Management is not to be confused by Access Management. Although the two are often strongly intertwined, Identity Management is literally about the management of identities.
This distinction is of importance in particular in case of federated identity management: the identity is established and authenticated by one party after which access rights are attached to it by other parties. This may happen in the context of e-business. National identity management, where the government issues identity documents to citizens who then can use these to het access rights to employers or financial institutions, is classic pre-electronic example of federated identity management.
---
I think that I would prefer to use Identity and Access Management instead of just Identity Management. Google statistics show that it is the terminology the most used by Google end-users...
Regards, Vince
[edit] Pure Identity Management
Identity Management is often about the identities only - picture the FBI database of people. It is not used for signon or access control. It IS Identity Management. I think it is important to bring out this definition as well as those that blend IdM with access management or access control.
Jim
