Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was asked on Friday to weigh potential privacy and security risks before allowing the City of Los Angeles to ditch Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Novell (NSDQ: NOVL) for Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

In a letter to the Mayor, Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, urges "a thorough analysis and risk assessment of all privacy and other confidentiality impacts that may occur" if the City of Los Angeles goes through with its proposal to replace its e-mail system and office applications with Google Apps.

The White House is still in the early stages of developing a digital identity management strategy, according to one of President Obama's cybersecurity advisors.

In a report on cybersecurity policy issued in May, the White House said that creating "an identity management vision that addresses privacy and civil liberties" would be an action item in the President's cybersecurity strategy. Over the long term, the government might implement an an "array" of opt-in, interoperable identity management systems for the public, according to the report.

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is spearheading an effort to update
agency-reporting requirements under the Federal Information Security
Management Act and to streamline the process by replacing spreadsheets
with an online database.

OASIS members have approved Identity Metasystem Interoperability (IMI) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. IMI is best known as the technical protocol that enables Information Cards, a new way for people to register, login, and share information with websites without needing a new username and password for each site.

IMI was advanced by representatives of IBM, Microsoft, CA, EMC, Novell, and others.

A group co-funded by the European Union will use as the core protocol for an identity system designed to integrate member states, but the group is still investigating if can provide some future benefit.