Back in May 2015, the Shibboleth Consortium announced July 31st 2016 as end-of-life date for the IdPv2 code base. A redesigned IdPv3.1.1 is available since March 2015. One month later, SWITCH announced the initial version of the SWITCHaai specific IdPv3 installation guide. In June and September 2015, SWITCH offered well-attended IdP training courses [4] on how to configure IdPv3. Since then, the number of IdPv3 installations has gradually increased to the 80% level it reached just at the beginning of the autumn semester 2016.
The Swiss edu-ID is a user-centric identity. This means that the identity is managed by its owner who directly provides many pieces of identity information in the personal profile.
But can a user be trusted? Will users provide correct personal information for their Swiss edu-ID?
Although users rarely have a interest in providing wrong personal information about themselves, the answer to the above question is no. For this reason, Swiss edu-ID has implemented various processes to verify user information. All email addresses and mobile phone numbers are directly verified when a user enters them in the personal profile.
As of today, users also can have their private postal address verified.
Unverified addresses are marked by a grey verification icon with red question mark
Klicking the green arrow starts the verification process. A few days later, the user will receive a letter (yes – a real one on paper!) at the specified postal address with an activation code. After the user has entered the code in the Swiss edu-ID profile the address is verified. This is reflected with a golden verification icon in the profile
The first service relying on this new feature is the National Licenses project of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries. Their aim is to give private individuals access to scientific publications. The publishers of scientific publications require some sort of proof of a user, that he/she is living in Switzerland. By relying on the verifications done within the Swiss edu-ID the national licenses service does not have to implement its own verification processes.
