Mobile Identity Management: Concepts, Issues, and Techniques

This paper takes a systematic approach to examining the basic concepts, the research issues and the state of art technologies in mobile identity management. We examine the concept of mobile identity and argue that mobile identity should be defined by combining mobile device identity and mobile user identity in a location-aware computing environment. Thus mobile identity management deals with the management of user identity and mobile device identity, as well as the management of the linking of human, devices, and locations in different mobile contexts. Based on this understanding, we review the state of art research on techniques for mobile user identity support, techniques for mobile device identity support, techniques for linking of a human and her mobile devices, and techniques and issues of linking a mobile device and its location. The survey ends with a summary and an outlook of the future research and technology development trends