Digital identity with a capital 'I'

I’m at Digital ID World 2005 conference in San Francisco. Phil Becker, editor in chief of Digital ID World and host of the event, kicked off the event defining his notion of digital identity, with a capital "I." He describes digital identity as the organizing construct for the network regardless of location. It's a framework for automating policies in organizing, integrating, managing and auditing network activity. The fuel that is driving digital identity management with a capital 'I' into the center of networking (pervasive, dynamic communications around the globe across heterogeneous systems) is compliance.  Becker called compliance the "universal application for identity infrastructure." Enterprises can't hide away from the fact that identity management and management by identity are essential to automating and decreasing risks associated with meeting Sarbanes-Oxley and other government-mandated requirements. Like accounting, compliance is a cost of doing business, Becker said. "Compliance is about assuring who did (or can do) what, with what data," Becker said. A holistic view across all networked interactions, as well as authentication, provisioning and identity portability and integrate, are required to automate compliance and tie it back to identity to assure policy adherence.  I guess you could say the the accounting scandals that launched regulations like Sarbanes-Oxely were the catalyst for establishing more trusted environments, but the work is just beginning...