The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on Feb. 12 announced its fourth round of funding for its pilot program in support of seeding projects aimed at developing trusted identities for use in online transactions and cyber space.
NIST is providing $5 million in FY ’15 for the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) pilot programs bringing the total invested in the projects to $30 million. The agency expects awards to selected recipients to range between $1 million and $2 million per year for up to two years.
The NSTIC “calls for the private sector to lead the development of an identity ecosystem where individuals can choose from a variety of credentials for use in lieu of passwords for interactions online,” Jeremy Grant, who is leading the strategy effort for NIST, said in a blog post.
NIST is interested in pilot proposals that address concerns about the impact of privacy and civil liberties arising from the crossing of contextual boundaries and the capacity for more tracking and profiling inherent in federated identity solutions, balancing transparency to individual users and ease-of-use, the usability of strong authentication technologies and more.