Higgins is an open-source project dedicated to giving individuals more control over their personal identity, profile and social network data.

The project is organized into three main areas:

1. Active Clients - An active client integrates with a browser and runs on a computer or mobile device.
   • Higgins 1. X: the active client supports the OASIS IMI protocol and performs the functions of an Information Card selector.
   • Higgins 2.0: the plan is to move beyond selector functionality to add support for managing passwords and Higgins relationship cards, as well other protocols such as OpenID. It also becomes a client for the Personal Data Store (see below) and thereby provides a kind of dashboard for personal information and a place to manage "permissioning"—deciding who gets access to what slice of the user's data.
2. Personal Data Store (PDS) is a new work area under development for Higgins 2.0. A PDS stores local personal data, controls access to remotely hosted personal data, synchronizes personal data to other devices and computers, accessed directly or via a PDS client it allows the user to share selected aspects of their information with people and organizations that they trust.
3. Identity Services - Code for (i) an IMI and SAML compatible Identity Provider, and (ii) enabling websites to be IMI and OpenID compatible.

History

The initial code for the Higgins Project^[1] was written by Paul Trevithick in the summer of 2003. In 2004 the effort became part of SocialPhysics.org, a collaboration between Paul and Mary Ruddy, of Azigo, (formerly Parity Communications, Inc.), and Meristic, and John Clippinger, at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Higgins, under its original name Eclipse Trust Framework, was accepted into the Eclipse Foundation in early 2005. Mary and Paul are the project co-leads. IBM and Novell's participation in the project was announced in early 2006.^[2][3] Higgins has received technology contributions from IBM, Novell, Oracle, CA, Serena, Google, eperi GmbH as well as from several other firms and individuals. Version 1.0 was released in February 2008.^[4]

As of 2019 Eclipse Higgins is archived, meaning that it is an inactive project.^[5]