Identify protection and verification systems just received a big cash influx from the government.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology this week awarded grants totaling more than $7 million to five organizations to develop pilot identify protection systems. The awards are the second round of grants for a project launched in 2011 — the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, or NSTIC. The program’s goal is to bring government and industry together to develop options for convenient security and privacy online.
“The grants announced today will support privacy-enhancing technologies that help make Internet transactions more secure, including better protection from fraud and identity theft, and are an important step toward giving American companies and consumers greater confidence in doing business online,” said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
The five programs will affect a number of everyday Internet user activities.
“These new NSTIC pilots span multiple sectors, benefitting children, parents and veterans, as well as online shoppers and social media users of all ages,” said Jeremy Grant, NIST’s senior executive advisor for identity management.
Here are the five organizations and a brief description, from NIST, of each pilot:
1) Exponent
“The Exponent pilot will issue secure, easy-to-use and privacy-enhancing credentials to users to help secure applications and networks at a leading social media company, a health care organization and the U.S. Department of Defense.”
2) Georgia Tech Research Corporation
“The [Georgia Tech] pilot will develop and demonstrate a ‘Trustmark Framework’ that seeks to improve trust, interoperability and privacy within the Identity Ecosystem. Trustmarks are a badge, image or logo displayed on a website to indicate that the website business has been shown to be trustworthy by the issuing organization.”
3) Privacy Vaults Online, Inc.
“[Privacy Vaults] will pilot a solution that provides families with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act-compliant, secure, privacy-enhancing credentials that will enable parents and guardians to authorize their children to interact with online services in a more privacy-enhancing and usable way.”
4) ID.me, Inc.
“ID.me, Inc.’s Troop ID will develop and pilot trusted identity solutions that will allow military families to access sensitive information online from government agencies, financial institutions and health care organizations in a more privacy-enhancing, secure and efficient manner.”
5) Transglobal Secure Collaboration Participation, Inc.
“The TSCP pilot will deploy trusted credentials to conduct secure business-to-business, government-to-business and retail transactions for small and medium-sized businesses and financial services companies, including Fidelity Investments and Chicago Mercantile Exchange.”
