A method for unique authentication of a user including federating an identity of said user for said service provider and an identity of the user for an identity provider, the federating including the steps of generating a user alias for that service provider and sending said identity provider a masked alias deduced from said alias, the identity provider associating said masked alias for that service provider with the identity of the user for the identity provider and sending the user elements for calculation by the user of a signature of a message containing the non-masked alias calculating said signature and sending the service provider said message with said signature, and the service provider verifying said signature, authenticating the user, and associating said alias with the user's identity.