ID-Legal Charter

Name
Identity and Legal Communities Cross Pollination Group

Purpose
The Purpose of the ID-Legal Collaboration Group is to increase opportunities for the exchange of ideas and the creation of hybrid identity concepts (cross pollination) between the legal community and technical community involved in innovating systems that affect digital identity because:
 * “Identity” is a multifaceted concept, each part of which relates to or arises from different aspects of interactions between individuals and others, and which are all mediated by technology.
 * Advances in technology continue to fundamentally alter each of the elements of the interaction feedback loops from which the various components of identity arise.
 * The existing legal authorities relating to identity issues rely on a language, conceptual structure and policy goals that do not fully address the latest advances in such mediating technology, and this situation is expected to continue due to the legal focus on prior precedent, rather than future scenarios.
 * Because the identity legal structure is not in sync with the identity technology structure, misunderstandings arise, the crafting of common definitions and approaches to working with identity issues is stalled, the evolution of advances in the development of identity tools is delayed, and the ability to formulate policies that simultaneously address legal and technological issues is undermined.
 * The pace of technological advance is expected to continue to accelerate, and the corresponding changes to identity issues are expected to continue to challenge the ability of law to address the new identity questions in a timely fashion.
 * Where the identity-related law is not able to adequately address issues arising from the adoption of new technology, it creates uncertainty  in technology markets, stalling the introduction of new products and services and undermining the ability of individuals and institutions to evaluate identity related options associated with the adoption of new technology.

Principles
The group is intended as a forum that will facilitate the exchange of ideas and information to promote learning among representatives from  the legal community and technologists working on the identity, interaction and relationship aspects of digital technologies. In the interest of creating an open forum for the exploration of relevant concepts, participants in the group and in the larger ID commons project acknowledge and agree that:
 * 1) the group is intended as a neutral forum for the sharing of ideas relating to identity issues.
 * 2) opinions expressed (orally or in writing) in the course of the work of the group are intended to promote advancement of the various aspects of the issues surrounding identity in a free and open manner.
 * 3) to promote the open presentation and exploration of ideas within the group, participants in the group will not be considered to maintain positions expressed in the group for purposes other than the group work, and to the extent that any such individual writings, statements or positions are cited or referenced outside of the group, they will not be attributed to a particular group member without their prior written confirmation that it is appropriate to do so.

Practices
Group communications: The group will use an IC hosted Mailing list and the IC wiki.

Group communications: The group will use an IC hosted Mailing list and the IC wiki.

Members of the group intend to collaborate with other working groups to synchronize intergroup efforts. This will include, in particular, the IdFutures and IdMedia Review. groups.

Project Funding: This group will raise funds to support its work. We will use the IC bank acount and will contribute 15% of revenue back to IC.

Requirements of Participation and How to Join
Participation in the group is open to all individuals. Where individuals are joining the group in a representative capacity (such as for a company, non-profit organization, governmental entity or other legal entity), they will indicate that relationship in the information that is provided to the group. Membership in the group is initiated when an individual joins the Mailing list

Licenses and/or Restrictions on Usage of Work Product
Contributions to the group are licensed under the Creative Commons with Attribution license.

It is also important that our work when distributed is contextualized.

Current Deliverables and Milestones
As of August, 2008, we are working on a description of our conference and a plan to aggregate prior content.

Current Meeting Schedule
We will have a Bay Area meeting for those interested early in 2009.

Current Membership

 * Peter Nixey, Clickpass,
 * Eli Edwards, SCU School of Law,
 * Lucy Lynch, Internet Society,
 * Kermit Smelson,
 * Gabe Wachob,
 * Hiroki Itoh, NTT,
 * Phil Wolff, dataportability.org,
 * Nika Jones, OUNO,
 * Bob Snodgrass, n2c,
 * Jeff Hodges, Neustar,
 * Judi Clark,
 * Dave Kearns,
 * Mike Macintosh, Xpollen,
 * Dazza Greenwood, Civics.com,
 * Bob Blakley, Burton Group,
 * Fen Labalme, CivicActions
 * J. Trent Adams, Internet Society

Current Stewards Council Representative and Alternate

 * Representative - Jeff Hodges
 * Alternate - Judi

Current Links
ID-Legal

Related Groups

 * Id Media Review
 * IdFutures

History

 * 2008 Q2 Report ID-Legal
 * 2008 Q3 Report ID-Legal