Oracle has released a technology and policy blueprint for how organizations can exchange sensitive identity information among applications.

Oracle has given the Identity Governance Framework (IGF) to the Liberty Alliance, a consortium that develops standards for Web-services applications, said Brett McDowell, Liberty's executive director. It was developed with support from vendors such as CA, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, and Novell.

The IGF will be used to develop technical standards for how identity information is stored and shared across systems. Over the coming months, Liberty will gather more technical requirements from users, McDowell said.

"In the big picture, this helps enterprises better manage the privacy of identity information," McDowell said. "The key is that this is one more layer in completing the overall framework for identity management."

Around June, a Liberty technical group will test the specifications before the final phase, interoperability testing, he said. Oracle made the IGF available to Liberty royalty-free so it can be used without licensing barriers in a wider range of products, McDowell said.

The IGF includes components such as:

-- Client Attribute Requirement Markup Language (CARML) and schema: an XML-based contract defined by application developers that informs deployment managers and service providers about the usage requirements of an application.

-- Attribute Authority Policy Markup Language (AAPML): a set of policy rules regarding the use of identity-related information that allow sources to specify constraints on use of data.

-- CARML API: an application programming interface that makes it easier for developers to write applications that consume and use identity-related data in a way that conforms to policies.