Hundreds
of federal services are
available to Americans electronically, but many require some
form of identity verification before an agency-to-citizen
or agency-to business transaction can take place. It takes
an estimated 3 to 5 years for federal agencies to develop
electronic identity authentication systems. Duplicative agency
efforts to create such systems, which do not communicate with
each other, are a substantial cost burden for the government.
Moreover, the public is burdened by having to complete a separate
registration process (e.g., user name, password, or other
electronic credential) for each agency with which they want
to conduct on-line transactions.
The E-Authentication Initiative
will provide a trusted and secure standards-based authentication
architecture to support the 24 government-wide E-Government
initiatives. This approach will provide a uniform process
for establishing electronic identity and eliminate the need
for each initiative to develop a redundant solution for the
verification of identity and electronic signatures. E-Authentication’s
distributed architecture will also allow citizens and businesses
to use non-government issued credentials to conduct transactions
with the government.
Successful implementation of E-Authentication
will produce numerous benefits for the public and the federal
government. Citizens and businesses will have a secure, easy-to-use
and consistent method of proving identity to the government
and will be spared the burden of having to keep track of multiple
sets of registration information. Federal agencies will be
able to reduce authentication system development and acquisition
costs and reallocate labor resources previously used to develop
such systems.
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