Concept of Trust

The Liberty Alliance Project specifications assume existing trust relationships between members in a circle of trust. This trust is usually defined through business arrangements or contracts that describe the technical, operational, and legal responsibilities of each party and the consequences for not completing them. When defined, a trust relationship allows one organization to trust the user authentication and authorization decisions of another organization. This trust then enables a user to log in to one site and, if desired, access a trusted site without reauthentication.

Ensure that these trust agreements are in force before going live with a Liberty-compliant system. The Liberty Alliance Project has created a support document for helping to establish these arrangements. The Liberty Trust Model Guidelines document is located on the Support Documents and Utility Schema Files page on the Liberty Alliance Project web site.