Windows CardSpace

f you're like many people, you carry identification—a passport, drivers license, credit card, or an employee or student ID card. Merchants and financial institutions use identification to verify your identity to help protect you from theft and fraud. Sometime in the not-so-distant-future, you’ll use similar identification in the online world. Information Cards are personal identification that you can use on a website in a similar manner to the way that you use your current identification today.

Information cards use digital signatures to prevent imposters. When you send an information card to a website, the "card" identifies you with a digital signature, shows what website you sent it to, and indicates when it was sent. Information cards are safer to use than usernames and passwords for sign-in to a website because digital signatures make them very difficult to forge.

Information cards are also convenient. Because information cards are protected with signatures, you can safely use one information card at many websites without creating a new account and password at every site you visit, just as you can with your offline identification.

To get started with information cards, you can install Windows CardSpace and use it to sign in to one of the websites that support information cards today.

How does Windows CardSpace work?

Windows CardSpace is client software that makes it possible for users to provide their digital identity to online services in a more simple and secure way. It is an online virtual information card—an ID card for the Internet—that helps prove a user's identity, and it is very difficult to fake or steal.

Each information card has some identity data associated with it—although this data is not actually stored in the card. The identity data has either been given to the user by an identity provider such as bank, employer, or government, or that has been created by the users themselves.

Information cards are virtual representations of a person's identity that are validated by a separate party. Information cards are analogous to real-world identity cards such as passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, and employee ID cards.

Advantages of Windows CardSpace information cards include:

• Information cards are more flexible than simple user names and passwords.
• Information cards provide a consistent user experience.
• Information cards employ strong cryptography, which makes using them more secure than using passwords.
• Information cards can present any type of identity claim that makes sense to all of the interacting parties and which users are willing to release.

Information for consumers

Today's consumers are concerned about using the Internet as a result of security risks and the hassle of maintaining user names and passwords for multiple sites. A user may use the same password for multiple sites. This makes it easier for the user to remember the password, but it compounds the problem if someone is able to steal that password. However, with information cards, you can use one information card for all the sites you visit, several information cards for specialized purposes (work and personal), or any combination of the two.

Using the Microsoft identity selector, Windows CardSpace, puts consumers in control of the information that they release about themselves, making tasks such as online purchasing quicker, easier, and more secure.

Information for businesses

The Microsoft identity selector, Windows CardSpace, makes it easier for businesses to build brand loyalty with customers and set up partnerships with other organizations. It also makes it simpler for employees to quickly gain access to the systems they need, while ensuring that former employees no longer pose a security risk.

Windows CardSpace partner network

Microsoft is working with a broad range of businesses, organizations, and vendors to help them understand how they can take advantage of Windows CardSpace and offer these benefits to their customers and partners