[August 27, 2014]

ID.me Approved by the Federal Government to Issue High Assurance Digital Identity Credentials

With FICAM's decision to approve ID.me as an accredited Credential Service Provider last Thursday, the company joins the likes of Symantec (News - Alert) and Verizon by enabling American citizens to easily and securely access government services online through a trusted Single Sign On. The Federal Identity Credential Access Management (FICAM) Trust Framework Solutions program approved ID.me as a non-PKI Credential Service Provider (CSP (News - Alert)) and Token Manager (TM) service operating at Assurance Levels 1, 2, and 3. ID.me is the only small business certified to provide trusted credentials to citizens and the federal government up to the highest level of assurance required for citizens to remotely and securely access sensitive data like medical records and financial information.

ID.me has been delivering innovative identity (ID) verification solutions to the commercial market for several years, enabling consumers to prove who they are and share identifiable attributes about themselves online in scenarios where those attributes are valuable to the consumer. Unlike other well-known Single Sign On providers, ID.me does not share or sell consumer's data to third parties and minimizes the data that a third party app can request from a consumer. The service has gained widespread commercial adoption by working with brands that wish to offer special promotions to affinity groups like the military and students.

With leading brands like Under Armour, Overstock.com, Uber, Sears, and Jockey using ID.me's technology on their websites, ID.me's retail coalition ensures that consumers use the service frequently. The rapidly growing service will directly issue credentials to nearly 2M users by the end of 2014. ID.me's recent approval by FICAM will make those digital ID credentials more valuable to the consumer, as consumer's can now use their ID.me credentials to access government benefits and services.

"Consumers are tired of having to create yet another username and password and to attempt to prove who they are to each government agency when they acess government services online," said Matthew Thompson (News - Alert), ID.me COO. "ID.me enables consumers to more rapidly login to government services with a trusted credential issued by ID.me or a participating financial institution so that consumers can leverage the trust they have already established in their online identity across a network. We are excited to be able to enhance the delivery of government services to the standard consumers expect in the 21^st century."

The United States Department of Commerce selected ID.me to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) and awarded the company $2.8M over two years due to the company's potential to increase trust for consumers and organizations in digital transactions. ID.me's FICAM certification represents a major milestone towards this goal. Although a July 3, 2003 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy memo on Streamlining Authentication and Identity Management within the Federal Government called for reducing "the burden on the public when interacting with government by allowing citizens to use existing credentials to access government services and enabling new services that otherwise could not or would not have been available," public sector agencies lacked an efficient, accredited solution to comply with that memo until ID.me's certification last Thursday.

To date, the government's attempts to deploy trusted credentials though the initial set of FICAM approved credential service providers (CSPs) has been severely hampered. The Single Sign On options utilized by government agencies are not broadly adopted and therefore do not have significant utility for consumers. A Single Sign On that is only accepted at a few places is essentially an oxymoron. As a result, these initial ID credentials experienced limited user adoption, a reality that made it difficult for federal agencies to meet large-scale adoption mandates. By contrast, ID.me's platform allows citizens to conveniently leverage a single ID credential at over 600 online retail locations or to use existing credentials with their financial institution to log into the ID.me service.

Thompson adds, "For a Bring Your Own ID model to work, standards are essential to make the market work efficiently and to provide clear criteria for the accreditation of Credential Service Providers. A recent report by the Ponemon Institute (News - Alert) revealed that 80 percent of the more than 3,000 IT and IT security professionals surveyed worldwide agreed that formal certification of their BYOID identity provider was important with 29 percent of those surveyed saying it was essential."

Every day, nearly 10,000 consumers choose to adopt the ID.me credential across the private sector. With ID.me's recent certification, the company expects to extend tens of millions of trusted credentials over the next calendar year through the ID.me platform into the identity ecosystem.

About ID.me

ID.me is the first digital identity network that allows consumers to prove who they are online while controlling how their information is shared with brands. For participating organizations, ID.me acts as a trusted intermediary, capable of verifying consumer identity and group affiliations in real-time. ID.me does not sell, rent, or loan member information to a third party for any reason. ID.me members retain complete control over how, or if, their information is shared on a case-by-case basis. This allows brands to ensure a consistent customer experience across offline and online channels while reducing costs associated with manual verification. ID.me was a finalist for WSJ Startup of the Year, named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's "100 Brilliant (News - Alert) Companies," and ID.me was selected as one of five companies to participate in the President's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTC). For more information, visit http://www.ID.me, www.facebook.com/IDmeinc or www.twitter.com/IDme.

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