An open source project that aims to give people more control over how their personal information is used online has secured the backing of IBM and Novell. The Higgins Project, managed by the Eclipse open source foundation, aims to develop so-called 'user-centric' identity management.

...IBM, Harvard Law School's Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, Novell, and Parity Communications all said they are contributing code to the project, which aims to spawn new cross-platform security software. As well as supporting Unix, Linux or Windows machines, Project Higgins will support any identity management system.

Higgins breaks a person's identity into pieces, allowing users to dictate who can access parts of their identity information, within applicable privacy guidelines and laws. Organisations using applications built with Higgins open source tools can share specific identity information, such as their telephone number or buying preferences, according to rules set by the individual.

The Reg.