IEEE Pushes Digital Identity Standard

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, announced in a press release the launch of a new IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Industry Connections program: Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency.

The program will bring together technology innovators, industry movers, policy and legal experts and leading academic researchers to create standards that incorporate ethical considerations around consumer and patient data.

“Identity is a consideration in every business and social transaction,” explains Greg Adamson, program co-chair. “Blockchain technology could be the catalyst to making universal and dignity-respecting digital identification systems a reality with its unique ability to retain identities in a secure and immutable manner.”

Participation in the program is open to all individuals and representatives of organizations dedicated to securing digital inclusion for the global community, with members representing multi-disciplinary fields and sectors, including engineering, law, energy, healthcare, finance, economics, ethics, supply chain, technology and politics.

Some of the initiative’s goals include engaging underserved populations so that their needs are met; safeguarding personal agency and dignity to protect the most vulnerable; protecting the right to privacy or the right to be forgotten online and encouraging distributed ledger technology standards that facilitate financial inclusion and other decentralized data-sharing capabilities.

“The Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency initiative is crucial to expanding cross-domain interaction that can advance technology and lead to new, innovative services and business models, and also provide full confidence that personal data and user identity are safe and secure,” notes Oleg Logvinov, program co-chair. “In today’s data-driven world, with an ever-growing number of IoT devices collecting data associated with our lives, it is imperative that we develop technical and data standards that protect individuals’ data privacy and ownership of data.”

This new program complements other initiatives, such as the IEEE Internet Initiative on internet governance, cybersecurity and privacy issues; as well as the IEEE Blockchain Special Interest Group, a hybrid group of technologists seeking to build consensus technical standards to advance adoption of the technology across multiple industry sectors.