IEEE Standards Association Announces Initiative Designed to Protect Digital Identity for the Global Community

PISCATAWAY, NEW JERSEY, USA, 27 April 2017 – IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, today announced the launch of a new IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) Industry Connections (IC) program: Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency. The program will convene technology innovators, industry movers, policy and legal experts, and leading academic researchers to build consensus on creating standards that encompass ethical considerations around consumer and patient data

“Identity is a consideration in every business and social transaction,” explains Greg Adamson, program co-chair. “Blockchain technology could be the catalyst to making universal and dignity respecting digital identification systems a reality with its unique ability to retain identities in a secure and immutable manner.”

Participation in the new initiative is open to all individuals and representatives of organizations dedicated to securing digital inclusion for members of the global community—from the fortuitous to the underserved. The initiative’s goals are predicated on the following concepts:

• Engaging underserved populations so that their voices and needs are included
• Safeguarding personal agency and dignity to protect the most vulnerable
• Identifying oneself on the internet without sacrificing the right to privacy or the right to be forgotten
• Encouraging distributed ledger technology standards that facilitate financial inclusion and other decentralized data sharing capabilities

“The Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency initiative is crucial to expanding cross-domain interaction that can advance technology and lead to new, innovative services and business models, and also provide full confidence that personal data and user identity are safe and secure,” notes Oleg Logvinov, program co-chair. “In today’s data driven world, with an ever-growing number of IoT devices collecting data associated with our lives, it is imperative that we develop technical and data standards that protect individuals’ data privacy and ownership of data.”

This new program is complementary to other programs supporting the broader mission of the IEEE, like the IEEE Internet Initiative on internet governance, cybersecurity, and privacy issues; and the IEEE Blockchain Special Interest Group, a hybrid group of technologists seeking to build consensus technical standards to advance adoption of the technology across multiple industry sectors.

Program members will represent multi-disciplinary fields and sectors including engineering, law, energy, healthcare, finance, economics, ethics, supply chain, technology and politics.

For more information, or to become an Initiative member, please visit the Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency program.

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IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) is a collaborative organization where innovators raise the world’s standards for technology. IEEE SA provides a globally open, consensus-building environment and platform that empowers people to work together in the development of leading-edge, market-relevant technology standards, and industry solutions shaping a better, safer and sustainable world. For more information, visit https://standards.ieee.org.

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