"shane.bryzak(a)jboss.com" wrote : Identity is the wrong place for this, it is purely concerned with authentication and only contains principals it needs to authenticate. Using a session-scoped component is perfectly valid for displaying the user's full name. The authenticator is what is concerned about authentication, and I would agree that the authenticator should only have authentication code in it. At least this is the direction Seam appears to be taking. (Note: that I said "appears" because I have not read the road map and am not 100% sure about that). But isn't the Identity object used to identify the user who has been authenticated? If this is true, then the attributes that "identify" a user could differ greatly based on the application. In normal cases the default Identity object might suffice. But it would be nice to be able to define a custom (subclass) Identity object where I can add attributes based on what my application needs. Anyway, I'm still just getting my feet wet with Seam, so take my thoughts as just that thoughts (and if you feel like it, suggestions). Thanks for the info. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4020403#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...