White House Releases "Identity Ecosystem" Plan

At the beginning of the year there were some talks of the Obama Administration coming up with an online identification plan. Well, the plan was released today, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Here’s an excerpt from the front page that puts the plan in layman’s terms:

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) envisions a cyber world - the Identity Ecosystem - that improves upon the passwords currently used to log-in online. It would include a vibrant marketplace that allows people to choose among multiple identity providers - both private and public - that would issue trusted credentials that prove identity. For example, student Jane Smith could get a digital credential from her cell phone provider and another one from her university and use either of them to log-in to her bank, her e-mail, her social networking site, and so on, all without having to remember dozens of passwords. If she uses one of these credentials to log into her Web email, she could use only her pseudonym, “Jane573.” If however she chose to use the credential to log-in to her bank she could prove that she is truly Jane Smith. People and institutions could have more trust online because all participating service providers will have agreed to consistent standards for identification, authentication, security, and privacy.

For those of you wondering, “the identity ecosystem is voluntary. You will still be able to surf the Web, write a blog, participate in an online discussion, and post comments to a wiki anonymously or using a pseudonym. You would choose when to use your trusted ID. When you want stronger identity protection, you use your credential, enabling higher levels of trust and security.” Greater online security is certainly needed, but whether that is the government’s job is up to the voters. The full plan can be viewed in .pdf format here.