New biometric identity assurance standard approved

The Biometric Identity Assurance Services-Simple Object Access Protocol (BIAS SOAP profile) achieved another milestone as it has been awarded full OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) standard status by members of the OASIS International standards organization.

This OASIS BIAS profile specifies how to use the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) definitions contained within the ANSI INCITS 442-2010. SOAP based services enable a software application to invoke biometric identity assurance operations remotely in a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) infrastructure.

The OASIS BIAS Integration TC complements the efforts of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) to provide the biometrics and security industries with a documented, open framework for deploying and invoking identity assurance capabilities that can be readily accessed as services. OASIS standards look at conformant implementation. INCITS looks at requirements for BIAS operations and data elements that can be implemented using any encoding scheme or messaging protocol.

The BIAS SOAP profile can perform biometric operations within a services oriented architecture using XML and SOAP Web services messaging.

Catherine Tilton of Daon, co-chair of the OASIS BIAS Integration Technical Committee said: “We are excited to achieve the milestone of becoming an official OASIS standard. The BIAS SOAP profile is much needed for facilitating service-based communication between heterogeneous biometric systems and subsystems. We look forward to BIAS being widely adopted within a variety of applications.

As explained by Kevin Mangold of the US NIST, co-chair of the OASIS BIAS Integration Technical Committee: “Biometric systems are becoming more complex as they are integrated into larger identity management and credentialing systems. They are increasingly being used in large-scale systems built on an SOA. In these environments, the BIAS SOAP profile makes it possible for data to be shared and resources and services to be reused within and across organizations.

BIAS will be used in open systems alongside related standards such as the Web services for Biometric Devices (WS-BD) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Will the approval of the BIAS SOAP profile as an OASIS standard help organizations share data and reuse resources and services in open systems?

Article Topics

biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  identity management  |  NIST  |  security  |  standards