I managed to finish the NECC paper on government identity management. Since I tend to read such stuff (almost) end to end , it took me some time, but the results were worth it. The picture it paints is not rosy, we-will-we-will-rock-you, but overall it provides a good and realistic account on this complicated and multifaceted issue. If you are patient enough to read through the first half, you will be rewarded by:

a) understanding of where and how historically government "manages" identities of people.

b) why digital identity is important for future governmental IT projects

c) challenges of managing citizen identity in interactions with such a multifarious entity such as government.

d) high-level design options and their effect on governance, checks and balances and other institutional mechanisms ensuring proper place for government

e) identification of questions of political nature that needs to (and hopefully will) be resolved through political process

All this is from the US government perspective and as such it covers specialities like citizen anonymity in dealing with state administration or relationships between federal and state government. The US specific parts can be however easily filtered out and what remains does apply even outside US. Going even one step further, government aspects can be filtered out as well, and what remains will be relevant to enterprise identity architecture, especially when "enterprise" is large, complex and decentralised.

9:29:16 PM