IdProF: Identity provisioning framework for smart environments

Inhabitants of smart environments should interact with each other in a seamless context-sensitive manner. Identity verification is a frequent task required before any interaction. However, every interaction requires a different identity profile and a different verification protocol. Asking inhabitants to verify themselves before every interaction is a tedious, time-consuming process that disrupts inhabitants' activities and degrades the overall performance. To avoid such problems, we propose IdProF, a secure context-sensitive seamless multi-modal identity provisioning framework for smart environments. IdProF builds an encrypted 360-Degree Inhabitant Profile (i.e., 360DIP) using the inhabitant's activities history and the corresponding access and usage patterns for environment's resources. Using the developed 360DIP, and based on the involved context (e.g., location, involved activity, interacting inhabitant, access date and time), IdProF generates a Disposable Customized Virtual Inhabitant Profile (DCVIP) on demand, then creates a customized identity proxy to handle the identity verification for the required interaction. In case of DCVIP generation failure, warnings are sent to the inhabitant to verify the interaction. We believe, IdProF reduces the risks for identity theft/loss, as it does not depend only on unique identifiers, but it takes into consideration the dynamics of the inhabitants' behaviors as well as their access and usage patterns.