Over the next few months, Liberty's SAEG will work on developing an Identity Strong Authentication Framework to enable different types of strong authentication technologies such as smart cards, tokens and biometrics that can work across organizations, networks and vertical market segments. The first draft of the framework is expected to be released in mid-2006.

The creation of the new group comes at a time of heightened interest in strong authentication methods largely driven by fears of online fraud and identity theft.

Such concerns recently prompted the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to release new guidelines calling on banks to upgrade current single-factor authentication processes -- typically based on usernames and passwords -- with stronger forms of authentication.

Though the Liberty Group's effort is targeted specifically at federated identity networks, it also is relevant to the banking sector, said Jim Salters, director of technology development and business initiatives at the FSTC.

The FSTC, whose members include most major financial institutions in the U.S., has for the past several months been working on a separate initiative to define guidelines and standards for better mutual authentication between retail bankers and their customers.