Canada awards Zighra digital ID authentication contract for national defense

The Canadian government has awarded Zighra a new contract to test a digital ID system developed by the country’s Department of National Defense.

According to a press release, the pilot program will enable the authentication of defense personnel within the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) partners.

More specifically, the project aims to introduce a standardized and centrally managed ID and credentialing process via Zighra’s decentralized identification and AI solutions.

“Zighra is excited to work with the RCN partners on this innovative project, leveraging the power of sensors and machine learning algorithms to create a sensor identity network that dynamically adapts and learns from human-machine and machine-machine interactions,” explains the company’s CEO, Deepak Dutt.

According to the executive, the technology deployed as part of the RCN pilot is built to run on small sensor-based devices, including wearables and smartphones, in cloud-denied environments.

“This effort is not only a significant opportunity for the Digital Navy Initiative but also for other potential providers, putting a much-needed focus on identity at the front-end of their journey toward zero trust implementations,” Dutt adds.

The new infrastructure will support a unique identity for each person and network device accessing CAF information resources. It will also enable tactical operators to efficiently and securely access locations, networks, and information.

The new contract builds on an existing collaboration between Zighra and RCN, which saw the entities jointly work on FIDO-certified behavioral biometrics for passwordless authentication in October last year.

Pone Biometrics and PQShield collaborate on post-quantum cryptography

Another contract signed last week to address the government and defense market is one between Pone Biometrics and PQShield.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is focused on creating future-proof cryptographic security solutions.

“Pone Biometrics will raise the bar for the rest of the industry by embedding post-quantum security by design, offering a hybrid solution of strong, secure access and quantum protection,” says Pone Biometrics CEO Jan-Erik Skaug.

“This is an essential step in setting a completely new standard for cybersecurity that not only keeps data secure today but also safeguards organizations from more sophisticated security threats tomorrow.”

More specifically, the technology stemming from the partnership will integrate PQShield’s post-quantum cryptography (PQC) into Pone Biometrics’ smart card-sized hardware solution OFFPAD.

“PQShield looks forward to a long-term cooperation with Pone Biometrics to offer the most security-conscious and demanding customers the optimal combination of usability and the highest possible security,” says the firm’s VP of sales and business development, Alan Grau.

PQShield also collaborated with Thales and NIST earlier this year to create a new post-quantum cryptography standard.

Article Topics

behavioral biometrics  |  biometrics  |  cryptography  |  cybersecurity  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  identity verification  |  military  |  zero trust  |  Zighra