The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML-based framework for communicating user authentication, entitlement, and attribute information. As its name suggests, SAML allows business entities to make assertions regarding the identity, attributes, and entitlements of a subject (an entity that is often a human user) to other entities, such as a partner company or another enterprise application.

Prior to SAML, there was no XML-based standard that enabled exchange of security information between a security system (such as an authentication authority) and an application that trusts the security system. SAML provides a standard XML representation for specifying this information and interoperable ways to exchange and obtain it.

SAML is a flexible and extensible standard designed to be used - and customized if necessary - by other by other standards. The Liberty Alliance, the Internet2 Shibboleth project, and the OASIS Web Services Security (WS- Security) Technical Committee have all adopted SAML as a technological underpinning for various purposes.

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