Michael Osborne

_Michael Osborne, IBM Research Division, Zürich Research Center, Säumerstrasse  4,8804 Rüschlikon, Switzerland (osb@zurich.ibm.com. Mr Osborne is an IBM Distinguished Engineer. He currently leads the foundational cryptography group at the IBM Research center in Rüschlikon Switzerland and has a global role as CTO for IBM Quantum Safe. His current focus includes leading IBM Research division's Quantum Safe Cryptography efforts to develop and standardize quantum resistant technology and transferring this technology to IBM’s products and services. His activities include developing standards, methodologies and guidance to help organizations migrate to quantum safe cryptography. He advises governments and industry policy bodies on cryptography topics that include assurance and evaluation, secure development, cryptographic agility and PQC migration.

His project experience includes leading major national security transformations in areas such as land registry digitization, large scale production of national chipped identity documents, data trust for extracting business insights from anonymized data, national PKI schemes, FIPS 140 and Common Criteria product evaluations,

Other activities include privacy enhancing cryptography, cryptography for blockchains, GDPR  and cloud security.

Previous to this Michael has played a key role in designing smart card, biometrics and PKI solutions that address both security and privacy concerns. As a research staff member of the Bluez Business Computing team, Michael was involved in the design and integration of the security architecture for a French land registry project (GILFAM). The project entailed stringent requirements in the areas of long-term digital signatures and biometric based non-repudiation, and mandated a comprehensive security architecture that encompassed SSO, biometrics, smart cards, FINREAD class 4 card readers, PKI, TSA and tamper-proof cryptographic coprocessors.

'Secure identity is about systems that prove in a secure way that you are who you say you are,' says Michael. 'It covers the processes of collecting and verifying the data required to identify a person, the transferring of this identity to a suitable document, and the usage of this identity in a given infrastructure. These systems require the secure combination of technologies such as security printing, smart chips, cryptography and biometrics in a way that protects the privacy of the user.'

Michael's tenure at IBM Research - Zurich began in 1997, developing advanced routing protocols for IBM networking hardware division WAN products. In 1999 his work on routing protocols extended to include mobile networks — an effort that culminated in a Golden Nugget award at the U.S. Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration.

Since 2000, Michael's work has focused on smart card and security projects, including a government services ID card and a nationwide consumer payments smart card for two Global Business Services clients. As more countries move toward providing their citizens with e-government services, the need for portable secure identity cards will increase. In general, he works on augmenting the security features of printed security documents with electronic ones in order to increase reliability, ease-of-use and security. To do so, he integrates advanced plastic and chip technology with biometric capabilities such as fingerprint scanning.

Michael Osborne is currently manager of the Security research group at IBM Research - Zurich, whose work concentrates on many aspects of information security, including secure ID solutions, data storage security, identity governance, cloud computing security and many more.

To produce secure identity in the form of documents containing microchips and biometric capabilities requires bringing together and integrating a raft of various technologies. In addition, existing user enrollment and document production processes must be overhauled, all the while being mindful of the need to protect the privacy of the individual users.