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ID on your phone

HID Global announced it has entered the market for mobile citizen IDs that can be carried on smartphones. The HID goID platform for mobile IDs enables driver’s licences and other government IDs to be carried on smartphones that become all-in-one devices for receiving, presenting and authenticating mobile IDs with the highest level of privacy protection. This marks a new era in which individuals will be able to confidently use their smartphone as their secure, trusted ID, and governments can reach a new level of convenience in issuing IDs and extending their relationships with citizens.

“Mobile IDs will simplify people’s lives, empower them with more applications and increase the level of trust for individuals to use their digital identity,” said Rob Haslam, vice president and managing director of the government ID business within HID Global. “As the first solution to enable convenient yet secure issuing and receiving of credentials over the air, the HID goID platform creates a brand new category for mobile citizen IDs. Governments around the world already rely on HID Global for major programmes, such as the US Green Card, Ireland Passport datapage, Angola National ID and more; HID goID lays the foundation for HID Global to lead the industry’s evolution to mobile IDs as well.”

Powered by HID Global’s Seos technology, the HID goID platform for mobile IDs goes much further to enable instant over-the-air provisioning and streamlined access to cloud-based government information services with the assurance that all transactions are secure and trustworthy. This ensures all transactions related to issuing, managing and presenting credentials using mobile phones are conducted in a highly secure, closed-circuit environment protected by end-to-end encryption.

Seos technology has already demonstrated the transformational power of mobile IDs in numerous applications, and there is growing demand for this capability to provide the equivalent of a digital wallet for carrying multiple identities tied to the user’s one true identity. A Zogby Analytics poll of 18- to 34-year-olds who have smartphones revealed that 39 percent would like to verify their identity with a digital ID instead of showing a driver’s licence. With IDs on smartphones, citizens are in control of the data made available in different scenarios, such as only showing a person’s photo and age.

HID Global is now engaging with national governments and state and provincial driver’s licence agencies about the possibility of launching goID pilots that will explore each jurisdiction’s specific platform deployment objectives and requirements. The solution will eliminate the need for people to stand in lines for new cards and renewals. Key focus areas include: preventing fraud through authentication over secure channels; optimising flexibility for online authentication if a citizen’s smartphone battery is dead; simplifying issuance through over-the-air provisioning as already proven at universities, banks, hotels, hospitals and other institutions using Seos technology; and protecting privacy by using a smartphone’s Bluetooth connection so users can electronically present their credentials without physically relinquishing their smartphones.

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