Perhaps it's because we're in the run up to the holiday season or because the press release came from the UK that accounts for the lack of commentary on the announcement that Experian has developed a CardSpace proof of concept with Microsoft. This is notable for a couple of reasons.

First it's another of what is still a comparatively rare breed of "real-world" adoptions of CardSpace (Otto in Germany, which I commented on back in September, being another).

Second it sees Experian exploiting the wealth of information it has gathered about individuals, together with its relationships with commerce service providers due to its position as the largest credit checking agency in the UK (it claims to process over 70% of all UK credit applications), to position itself as an identity provider.

In a nutshell Experian plans to issue individuals with a 'Experian Card' information card. When the individual visits a CardSpace-enabled site, they will be able to present the 'Experian Card' when challenged to provide credentials and other identity-related data. CardSpace (and presumably non-Microsoft identity selector alternatives, such as the Bandit Project's DigitalMe) would then send a request to Experian to validate the identity and return a signed token to be used by the site to determine whether the individual is who they claim to be.

Having a proof-of-concept is one thing but Experian is in a similar position to the first person to invest in a fax machine. They need others to participate if the technology isn't to languish as just an interesting experiment. Experian, because it is already trusted by service providers, is well positioned to get the identity selector ball rolling and according to the press release is

already in discussion with a number of organisations

and

will be in a position to demonstrate it to organisations, with the ultimate intention of launching an Identity Management Service in the near future.

That's only half the story though. The customers of those service providers also need to come on board. Whilst the wallet metaphor of CardSpace is intuitive, we have all grown too accustomed to the username/password/PIN/mother's maiden name ... approach to authentication and I am not convinced by Experian's claims that

there will be enormous demand for such a service from ... consumers

Rather, I think Experian is going to have to encourage service providers to actively promote the identity selector approach, not least because individuals (unless they are using Windows Vista) are going to have to install CardSpace or a non-Microsoft alternative.

I definitely don't want to pour cold water on the announcement. It's encouraging to see the adoption of "user-centric" (a term that I think is going to bandied about less in 2008) alternatives to traditional authentication mechanisms, given the enhanced usability and security, and I hope we do see a launch with a healthy group of service providers in the near future. Definitely something to watch.