The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on Monday awarded grants to three companies to conduct pilot projects under a trusted identities program aimed at making online transactions more secure while bolstering privacy.
Under the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), NIST awarded Galois, Inc. a $1.9 million grant, MorphoTrust USA—part of France’s Safran Group–$1 million, and HealthIDx, $813,922. So far, NIST has awarded 18 grants under NSTIC since its launch in 2011.
Galois, based in Oregon, will build “user-centric persona data storage system [that] relies on biometric-based authentication and will be built securely from the ground up” to allow users to store and share their personal information only, NIST said. The company will also develop just-in-time transit ticketing on smart phones and integrate the system into an internet of things-enabled smart home, the Commerce Department agency said.
Massachusetts-based MorphoTrust USA will focus on preventing the theft of personal state tax refunds building partnerships in multiple states for online driver licensing processing to create trustworthy electronic IDs that individuals control. MorphoTrust provides enrollment, verification and issuance capabilities for state motor vehicle departments using biometric identification, authentication and validation.
Last year MorphoTrust received an $823,235 grant under NSTIC to partner with North Carolina’s Departments of Transportation, and Health and Human Services to demonstrate how state issued credentials like driver’s licenses can also be used in online transactions for citizens services.
HealthIDx plans to deliver a privacy-enhancing technology to protect patients’ identify and information. The Virginia company’s pilot will use a “triple blind” technology in which medical service providers don’t know which credential service provider an end-user chooses, credential service providers won’t know which medical service provider an end-user visits, and the identity broker doesn’t know about the transaction’s parties or contents.
The NSTIC program is seeding the marketplace with solutions and standards to boost online security and privacy.