The National Institute of Standards and Technology has awarded more than $9 million in grants to support the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.
The funding will be used by five U.S.-based organizations to pilot identity solutions that increase confidence in online transactions, prevent identity theft and provide individuals with more control over how they share their personal information.
“Increasing confidence in online transactions fosters innovation and economic growth,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Patrick Gallagher. “These investments in the development of identity solutions will help protect our citizens from identity theft and other types of fraud, while helping our businesses, especially small businesses, reduce their costs.”
The grantees of the pilot awards are:
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) (Va.): $1,621,803
AAMVA will lead a consortium of private industry and government partners to implement and pilot the Cross Sector Digital Identity Initiative (CSDII). The goal of this initiative is to produce a secure online identity ecosystem that will lead to safer transactions by enhancing privacy and reducing the risk of fraud in online commerce. In addition to AAMVA, the CSDII pilot participants include the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Biometric Signature ID, CA Technologies, Microsoft and AT&T.
Criterion Systems (Va.): $1,977,732
The Criterion pilot will allow consumers to selectively share shopping and other preferences and information to both reduce fraud and enhance the user experience. It will enable convenient, secure and privacy-enhancing online transactions for consumers, including access to Web services from leading identity service providers; seller login to online auction services; access to financial services at Broadridge; improved supply chain management at General Electric; and first-response management at various government agencies and health care service providers. The Criterion team includes ID/DataWeb, AOL Corp., LexisNexis®, Risk Solutions, Experian, Ping Identity Corp., CA Technologies, PacificEast, Wave Systems Corp., Internet2 Consortium/In-Common Federation, and Fixmo Inc.
Daon, Inc. (Va.): $1,821,520
The Daon pilot will demonstrate how senior citizens and all consumers can benefit from a digitally connected, consumer friendly Identity Ecosystem that enables consistent, trusted interactions with multiple parties online that will reduce fraud and enhance privacy. The pilot will employ user-friendly identity solutions that leverage smart mobile devices (smartphones/tablets) to maximize consumer choice and usability. Pilot team members include AARP, PayPal, Purdue University, and the American Association of Airport Executives.
Resilient Network Systems, Inc. (Calif.): $1,999,371
The Resilient pilot seeks to demonstrate that sensitive health and education transactions on the Internet can earn patient and parent trust by using a Trust Network built around privacy-enhancing encryption technology to provide secure, multifactor, on-demand identity proofing and authentication across multiple sectors. Resilient will partner with the American Medical Association, Aetna, the American College of Cardiology, ActiveHealth Management, Medicity, LexisNexis, NaviNet, the San Diego Beacon eHealth Community, Gorge Health Connect, the Kantara Initiative, and the National eHealth Collaborative. In the education sector, Resilient will demonstrate secure Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)-compliant access to online learning for children. Resilient will partner with the National Laboratory for Education Transformation, LexisNexis, Neustar, Knowledge Factor, Authentify Inc., Riverside Unified School District, Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and the Kantara Initiative to provide secure, but privacy-enhancing verification of children, parents, teachers and staff, as well as verification of parent-child relationships.
University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) (Mich.): $1,840,263
UCAID, known publicly as Internet2, intends to build a consistent and robust privacy infrastructure through common attributes; user-effective privacy managers; anonymous credentials; and Internet2’s InCommon Identity Federation service; and to encourage the use of multifactor authentication and other technologies. Internet2’s partners include the Carnegie Mellon and Brown University computer science departments, University of Texas, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Utah. The intent is for the research and education community to create tools to help individuals preserve privacy and a scalable privacy infrastructure that can serve a broader community, and add value to the nation’s identity ecosystem.
