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Nation’s Leading Identity Trust Hubs Pledge to Expand Use of Digital Identities by Public and Private Sector Employees

Dépèche transmise le 3 mai 2012 par Business Wire

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A unique cooperative agreement intended to help federal and private-sector employees improve efficiencies and reduce costs by expanding use of their existing cyber-identities has been signed by the nation’s leading identity trust hubs. The agreement is expected to result in the accelerated reduction of paper-based processes.

The trust hubs are the Federal PKI Architecture (a unit of the US Government Services Administration serving all federal agencies), CertiPath (serving industry, including aerospace and defense), and SAFE-BioPharma (serving the global biopharmaceutical and healthcare sectors). Each identity trust hub is based on public key infrastructure (PKI), the efficient and cost-effective technology assuring trusted and secure electronic business transactions. Each is a member of the Four Bridges Forum (4BF).

The agreement calls for cooperation in educating the public and private sectors about the availability of PKI technology and its value in protecting online business-to-business and business-to-government transactions against fraud and theft and to eliminate reliance on slow and costly paper-based processes.

The document also was signed by the Research and Education Bridge Certification Authority, a member of the 4BF which is developing a PKI bridge for use within the education (K-20) and research sectors.

All federal and many corporate employees have PKI-based digital identities.

PKI technology employs cryptographic algorithms coupled with well-defined policies and procedures to provide digital identities that can be trusted with high levels of assurance. In addition, PKI-based identities can be used to apply legally binding digital signatures to electronic documents. These digital signatures are verified automatically and will fail to validate if a signed document has been altered.

PKI-based digital credential issuers collaborate by joining trust hubs or “bridges.” When bridges cross-certify, they create a far-reaching “federated” environment that fosters inter-organizational interoperability and trust -- an identity asserted by one digital identity provider will be recognized and trusted by the others in the federated trust environment.

Currently the federated trust environment includes the Federal Bridge, CertiPath Bridge, the SAFE-BioPharma bridge, and all of their respective members.

Educational outreach will take the form of documented best practices that will be made available to government and private employees and decision makers through literature, media outreach, industry meetings, and the Internet.

In addition, the agreement calls for periodic meetings to discuss ways to further enhance interoperability and trust in the interconnected bridge environment.

Each of the four signatories applied a digital signature to an electronic agreement to cooperate.

The 4BF initiative supports the federal government’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative, which is advancing a national Identity Ecosystem based on the use of secure, privacy-enhancing, interoperable and cost-effective digital identities.

4BF Participants

The Federal PKI Architecture was established to enable trusted transactions within the government and between government and its industry partners. http://www.idmanagement.gov/pages.cfm/page/Federal-PKI

For more information on the SAFE-BioPharma standard for digital identity and digital signatures used in life science and healthcare settings, visit http://www.safe-biopharma.org.

CertiPath is the pioneer in establishing interoperable trusted identities for collaboration within Aerospace and Defense via a standards-based PKI bridge. www.certipath.com

The Research and Education Bridge Certification Authority (REBCA) was developed at Dartmouth College to facilitate trusted electronic communications within and between all institutions of higher education within the US, as well as with federal and state governments. It is now open to all education and research institutions globally. www.rebca.org