Trusted online identities plan hinges on collaboration

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks, and its success will depend on the collaboration of a wide range of stakeholders in both the public and private sectors, information security officials said Feb. 15 at the RSA Security Conference.

“Collaboration is going to be at the core of the strategy,” said Jeremy Grant, newly appointed director of the NSTIC National Program Office. “We can't do this ourselves, and we really don't want to.” The goal of the strategy is creation of an identity ecosystem that will make flexible, voluntary and easy-to-use tools for online identity authentication widely available. This is seen as a key to ensuring the viability of the Internet as an economic driver. One of the challenges to encouraging adoption of the plan is the concern that NSTIC will involve an online national ID. Countering this fear will require the involvement of industry in making a variety of technologies available and adopting their use.