Category: SWITCH edu-ID

NOT for university members only

FHNW e-media offering for teachers uses Shared Attribute API

In principle open

Openness is one of the promises made by SWITCH edu-ID. In recent years, universities have increasingly opened up to additional user groups such as continuing education students or MOOC participants. Cooperation with external parties is becoming increasingly important overall, be it with other universities, research institutions or partners from the private sector. Academic institutions are expanding their offerings, and not every person who makes use of university services has to become an official member of the university.

But that’s why you let everyone in?

However, most service providers do not simply want to blindly trust a self-declared identity that users bring with them (i.e. a “naked” edu-ID).
There are many reasons why one wants to protect applications and content from unauthorized access, e.g. to prevent data theft or manipulation or to comply with data protection or license regulations. And if abuse has taken place despite all precautions, one wants to be able to find out who one can hold liable for damages. Of course, this can be difficult with unchecked identities, even if the majority of users behave correctly and have provided the correct personal data for their digital identity. So is this a reason not to trust edu-ID identities?
Continue reading “NOT for university members only”

Multi-Factor Authentication Reinforced

Since December 2018 the edu-ID login has supported multi-factor authentication in form of a two-step login that relies on SMS codes. However, receiving one-time SMS codes requires a mobile phone. Not all users want to add a mobile phone number to their edu-ID account. Furthermore, SMS messages generally cannot be securely sent. There is always the risk that somebody else intercepts SMS messages. Some edu-ID users also want to use multi-factor authentication for all their edu-ID logins but without entering a one-time code several times per day.
To address the above issues reported by the community, we extended the edu-ID two-step login in the following three areas…

Continue reading “Multi-Factor Authentication Reinforced”

Trust & Identity WG Meeting / SWITCH edu-ID Update Event 2019

SWITCH invites you on Wed, 15 May 2019 to the 2nd Trust & Identity WG Meeting combined with the SWITCH edu-ID Update Event in Berne.

Registration is open until Tue, 7. May 2019 and required for logistical reasons.
Refer to the registration page for the draft agenda and schedule.

A longer section of the event is dedicated to SWITCH edu-ID. The heads of IT of University of Lucerne and Distance University will talk about their adoption experience.

Administrators of either an Identity Provider or Service Provider registered in SWITCHaai as well as the SWITCHpki registration authority operators and all persons involved in (future) planning and adoption of SWITCH edu-ID are invited to participate.

What’s the SWITCH Trust & Identity WG?
The SWITCH Trust & Identity WG comprises representatives of all SWITCHaai Participants and SWITCHpki Participants in the SWITCH Community and the Extended SWITCH Community.
This group is informally involved with the further development of SWITCHaai/edu-ID and SWITCHpki and has the opportunity to provide feedback if there are questions or changes upcoming.

Switzerland’s E-ID Law clears further hurdles

Creating a new law is a long journey. We already featured several “making of” stages of the Swiss E-ID Law and the contributions of SWITCH in our E-ID category: consultation of an E-ID Concept in 2015, consultation of an early draft E-ID Law in 2017, publication of proposed law in 2018.

Another hurdle was recently cleared with the National Council approving the proposed law with relatively minor changes in March 2019 (for the interested: this business is referenced under 18.049). A minority wanted to change to government-issued Electronic Identities (eIDs), but the proposed market model was upheld.
Next step is the debate in the Commission of Legal Affairs of the Council of States in April 2019. In the absence of major changes, the law can be put in force in 2021.

Continue reading “Switzerland’s E-ID Law clears further hurdles”

Distance University too uses now edu-ID

On 6 March 2019, Distance University became the second university to switch to SWITCH edu-ID for authentication and access to its services. Here is an extract from their experience:

IT as a driving force

The project was primarily carried out by the IT department – supported by Marketing. All information had to be written in German and French. Student managers, who act as the first contact persons for teachers and students, were trained in advance by IT.

It took about 1.5 years from the initial discussions with SWITCH to the completion of the project. Distance University IT spent in total one man-month developing and testing the technical implementation. In addition, project management and communication were particularly time-consuming.

Information campaign as key

The Distance University launched an information campaign in the summer of 2018, thus persuading 75% of the university members to create an edu-ID account. The scenario “Linking before day X” was used for current users. The creation/linking of the account was simple and user acceptance correspondingly high.
Continue reading “Distance University too uses now edu-ID”

University of Lucerne – the edu-ID Pioneer!

On February 1st 2019 the University of Lucerne has made a big step. It is the first university that has completely switched over to the SWITCH edu-ID. All their roughly 4000 members use now their own secure, long-lived and user-centric SWITCH edu-ID account to access services relevant to the Swiss academic community.

The introduction of the edu-ID heralds a paradigm change in identity management for Swiss higher education. Users are getting more control over their personal data whereas universities can optimize their identity management processes. Fortunately, despite the fundamental architectural change, the impact on users is moderate.

“The migration to SWITCH edu-ID on 1 February 2019 went smoothly. Smaller problems after the migration were solved very quickly by SWITCH. Despite some obstacles in the course of the project, SWITCH provided us with competent support and assistance at all times.”
Marco Antonini, Head of IT

The first preliminary talks between University of Lucerne and SWITCH on edu-ID were held in September 2017. The idea behind the SWITCH edu-ID and, above all, the opportunities it offers in the future convinced the university right from the start. So they decided to change over relatively early. An important prerequisite, central user administration, was already in place, so that the concrete planning could be started.

As integration approach linking at registration was chosen for new students, and linking after admission for current members and future staff. With the integration of edu-ID in the organisational IT and the equipment of all members with an edu-ID identity the university has reached an important milestone. In a second step, further groups will be adressed namely alumni, auditors and further education students.

As the first organisation that completely changes over to SWITCH edu-ID, the university of Lucerne writes history. It can be rightfully proud of this achievement!

Managing User Affiliation with the Organisation Administrator Interface

The edu-ID is a user-centric system in which users generally manage their account data themselves. And yet, some data relates to and is thus asserted by organisations like universities. Therefore, the edu-ID system provides several APIs for organisations so that they can manage data about users they are authoritative for. A new way to manage this data is the edu-ID administration interface for organisations, which is presented in this blog post.

Continue reading “Managing User Affiliation with the Organisation Administrator Interface”

Two or More Factors for edu-ID

A representative from a larger higher education organisation in Switzerland recently stated that they identify roughly 40 compromised user accounts on average per month. Extrapolating this number for  all Swiss AAI users, this number would grow to more than 1’000 compromised accounts per month. Many of them are probably not even detected. Many of them probably belong to young students who may not always take proper care of their credentials. But every now and then, also staff members and professors learn about the nightmares of impersonation of their digital identity. So, how can edu-ID support SWITCHaai services to enhance authentication security? Continue reading “Two or More Factors for edu-ID”

E-ID law: SWITCH contributing to parliamentary hearing

At its meeting on 1 June 2018, the Federal Council adopted a dispatch to Parliament containing a draft for an E-ID law (see corresponding press release in DE, FR and IT; for follow-ups see “18.049 Business of the Federal Council”).

The National Council’s legal commission now runs the business. On 15.11.2018, it held a hearing with representatives of industry, public corporations, potential providers of E-ID solutions and interested parties from civil society. As a potential provider, SWITCH was able to take part in this hearing.

This draft E-ID law largely follows the preliminary draft consulted last year (press release with link to consultation report at page bottom). It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that the position of SWITCH expressed towards the preliminary draft also applies to the new draft law – including the criticism voiced therein. Continue reading “E-ID law: SWITCH contributing to parliamentary hearing”

Break and Enter

Have you ever invited professional burglars to break into your home to steal your valuables? For the edu-ID service we have done exactly that, and we even paid for it. The valuables in our case is identity data from all edu-ID users. However, the “professional burglars” were actually very kind, professional and skilled security experts from Compass Security.

Continue reading “Break and Enter”

Go for next Deployment Step

The project Deployment Step 2.2, submitted in February, is now approved by swissuniversities.

Participating Universities

From August on several universities will start the adoption planning, supported by federal funds in the framework of the Deployment Step 2 phase:

  • Berner Fachhochschule
  • Fachhochschule St. Gallen
  • Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale
  • Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Chur
  • Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich
  • Pädagogische Hochschule Bern
  • Université de Neuchâtel
  • Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.

The following universities plan the implementation of SWITCH edu-ID in 2018/19:

  • FernUni
  • Hochschule Luzern
  • Pädagogische Hochschule Schwyz
  • Pädagogische Hochschule Zug
  • Université de Lausanne
  • Universität Luzern
  • Universität St. Gallen
  • Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.

The list of participating organisations is regularly updated and available at https://projects.switch.ch/eduid/adoption/
Continue reading “Go for next Deployment Step”

There Can Be Only One!

As a child of the 80’s, of course I have seen the movie “Highlander”. In our “clone wars” (referencing Star Wars) against edu-ID duplicate accounts, I therefore remember the famous high lander quote “there can be only one”. Slightly adapted, this quote fits: “There can be only one edu-ID account per person”. Thanks to the automatic merging process described in this article, we now have the weapon in our hands to reach this goal.

Continue reading “There Can Be Only One!”

Clone Wars

Duplicate user accounts on a single system are sooner or later causing a nightmare. One ambition of the SWITCH edu-ID has always been the prevention of duplicate user accounts. However, only a few weeks after the edu-ID launch in 2015 we already found indications for a couple of duplicate accounts. How did that come about and what can we do to prevent duplicate accounts?

Continue reading “Clone Wars”

The SWITCH identity federation – a look beyond its borders

The SWITCH identity federation was conceived almost two decades ago. The SWITCHaai service, implementing its concepts, has been in operation for over a decade. Today, the SWITCH edu-ID service is in its initial stages to become its successor, and it is still following the same model: to stay the identity federation of the Swiss academic community. That is reason enough to address those two rather fundamental questions:

  1. Are national identity federations still the right approach to satisfy the needs of the academic community – a community with increasing international collaboration?
  2. Will emerging e-ID services, or services like SwissID, eventually replace the SWITCH identity federation?

Both question the remits of the current solution: national and academic. But they differ in perspective: while the first is questioning the national remit, the second is questioning the academic-only context. Continue reading “The SWITCH identity federation – a look beyond its borders”

Swiss edu-ID Deployment: Next Steps

Project for Deployment Step 2 in 2018/19 submitted

Within this next project phase – once approved by swissuniversities – the first three universities will implement SWITCH edu-ID:

  • Université de Lausanne
  • Universität St. Gallen
  • Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.

They’ve developed their individual integration plan during 2017 (Deployment Step 1). As the other four participating universities they have considerably contributed to elaborate and sharpen adoption scenarios for linking of new and current members and for managing affiliations.

Eleven universities will start implementation planning: Berner Fachhochschule, FernUni, Fachhochschule St. Gallen, Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale, Hochschule Luzern, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Chur (HTW Chur), Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich, Pädagogische Hochschule Bern, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwyz (PHSZ), Université de Neuchâtel and Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.

Continue reading “Swiss edu-ID Deployment: Next Steps”