$10 million offered for ideas on creating trusted online identities

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is making up to $10 million available for research projects addressing the challenges of implementing a trusted online identity ecosystem.

The Obama Administration released its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace last year, a conceptual framework for a system of voluntary, interoperable credentials that could be widely accepted for online transactions. The goals of this identity ecosystem are to enable more economic activity on the Internet while ensuring consumer privacy and security. Although technology and techniques exist for verifying identify online, challenges of scalability, ease of use and reliability hinder the widespread adoption of any but the simplest and least secure solutions, such as the commonly used user name and password. This has resulted in a lack of confidence in online transactions, the need for individuals to maintain multiple sets of login credentials, and growing threats to privacy through data breaches as well as leaking and reuse of data.