Block to pitch W3C open standards in NIST digital ID consortium

Block has joined the consortium of players in the in the mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) to help encourage faster development and adoption of digital IDs.

The consortium is being put together by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), and will work on the adoption of mDL standards and best practices, according to the company announcement.

NIST unveiled the list of participants in the consortium, which also includes Idemia, Mattr and SpruceID, along with banks and public sector organizations, last week.

Block plans to advocate for the implementation of open standards like those from W3C, along with emerging standards like ISO 18013-5. Decentralized digital identity is one of the main focusses of Block subsidiary TBD.

“Whether boarding a plane, creating a bank account, or making an online purchase, mobile driver’s licenses and other digital credentials have the potential to improve the way we conduct transactions, both in person and online,” says Bill Fisher, co-lead of the NIST mDL project at the NCCoE. “To help realize this potential, the NCCoE is collaborating with more than a dozen partners from across the mDL ecosystem to build out reference implementations and to accelerate the adoption of mDL standards and best practices.”

Article Topics

Block  |  decentralized ID  |  digital identity  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  NCCoE  |  NIST  |  open standards  |  TBD  |  W3C