IBM is planning a cloud-based technology — Identity Mixer – that can assist consumers to protect online personal data, including date of birth, home address and credit card numbers.
Identity Mixer uses a cryptographic algorithm to encrypt the certified identity attributes of a user, such as their age, nationality, address and credit card number. It allows the user to reveal selected pieces to third parties.
IBM said Identity Mixer can be used within a digital wallet, which contains credentials certified by a trusted third party, such as a government-issued electronic identity card.
Christina Peters, IBM’s Chief Privacy Officer, said: “Now web service providers can improve their risk profile and enhance trust with customers, and it’s all in the cloud, making it easy for developers to program.”
comScore says the average person spends nearly 25 hours per month using the Internet, accessing dozens of different Internet services, including banking, shopping and social networks.
IBM said developers can access Identity Mixer as a web service in IBM Bluemix, a new platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Bluemix subscribers can experiment with Identity Mixer within their own applications and web services.
Using menus, developers can choose the types of data that they wish to secure and Bluemix will provide the code, which can then be embedded in their services.
IBM has tied up with academic and industrial partners in Europe and Australia to conduct a new pilot project called Authentication and Authorization for Entrusted Unions (AU2EU).
In a two-year, 8.6-million euro pilot, IBM will test Identity Mixer in two scenarios: in Germany with the German Red Cross, and with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency.
A second pilot will support one of the keys to Australia’s agricultural productivity and related export trade: its freedom from exotic diseases, particularly in animals.
Image source: IBM
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