Four industry leaders breakdown the importance of online credentials
There have been many discussions about digital identities and online credentials in 2011. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is picking up steam and organizations are seeking to further secure IT networks as threats from hacking increase.
But questions and uncertainty abound. What are digital identities and how do they work? Will one credential work with another? How will they impact privacy and help address regulatory compliance?
In light of these and other pressing questions, Re:ID editors asked some of the leaders in the space to share their thoughts and vision for online ID.
Participating in the roundtable are: Jeremy Grant, senior executive adviser and manager of the National Program Office for NSTIC; Mollie Shields-Uehling, president and CEO at SAFE-BioPharma; Judith Spencer, former co-chair of the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management Subcommittee at the U.S. General Services Administration and now CertiPath’s policy management authority chair; and Scott Rea, board member and director of operating authority at the Research and Education Bridge Certification Authority (REBCA).
CertiPath, SAFE-BioPharma and REBCA along with the U.S. Federal Bridge make up The Four Bridges Forum a network of inter-linked cyber communities. The Four Bridges Forum includes all U.S. government agencies as well as the aerospace and defense and research and education communities.
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Current methods of confirming a person’s identity are not trustworthy − a driver’s license, birth certificate or passport can be forged, manipulated or stolen. In fact, these documents were never intended to truly identify someone in the first place.
Enabling a person with paper credentials to be trusted with an online identity becomes a great tool for fraudsters to create multiple identities. A new approach to identity confirmation and verification is required, one that doesn’t rely on cards, forms or paper documents and one that secures a persons identity. Only when a person is identified by a unique physical attribute can a person gain privacy.
A digital identity must include unique identifiers that reduce identity fraud and multiple identities under one name.
While our biological identities are in most important respects unique, the biometric attributes that can be used as personal identitifiers are themeselves subject to error and variance, and therefore to fraud. Sadly there are no silver bullets in the complex system that is identity - something that is as true online as it is in the real world.