Building public trust in digital identity

By Jesus Aragon, CEO and Co-Founder of Identy.io

From renewing a driver’s license to accessing public benefits, identity sits at the heart of nearly every interaction between government and constituents. In many of these situations, biometric and digital ID systems provide secure, efficient and effective public services.

Despite all these markers of success and innovation, much of the public remains skeptical of the technology and its capabilities. But if skepticism and distrust persist, modernization efforts will fall behind, creating unnecessary barriers to enhancing security and improving service delivery.

For this reason, government must create a unified biometrics and digital ID strategy founded on compliance, interoperability and transparency, while keeping people and trust at the center.

Building a compliant, interoperable foundation

There are several existing compliance standards for biometric technology, including NIST’s SP 800-63 Digital Identity Guidelines, GSA’s FICAM approach, ISO/IEC 19795 Series and FIDO Alliance standards. Following these guidelines offers opportunities for cross-agency collaboration, reliability and consistency of the technology being deployed.

By aligning with these compliance requirements, agencies are doing more than checking a box. They’re creating a network of secure, interoperable tools for user-centric and privacy-protective identity management.

Modern biometric systems should also align with ISO 30107-3 for liveness detection and be validated under NIST’s Contactless, FVRT and PFT III testing, ensuring that mobile and touchless methods reach the same accuracy levels as traditional hardware-based systems, while also ensuring phishing-resistant protection.

Beyond requiring these standards for federal agencies, procurement leaders should verify compliance with any and all vendors. From touchless biometrics to mobile identity apps, these solutions must be tested to ensure interoperability with existing systems.

However, simply meeting these industry standards isn’t enough. Many agencies still rely on legacy technology, such as manual verification processes, proprietary architectures, and on-premises infrastructure, which makes it difficult to deploy modern tools. By shifting to modular, interoperable digital ID infrastructure, agencies can easily integrate with today’s cloud-based and mobile solutions to accelerate modernization and improve efficiency.

This modular shift also allows biometric verification to operate securely on the user’s own device, with encrypted processing that limits network exposure. It reduces operational costs while aligning with privacy-by-design principles and FIDO Alliance model for phishing-resistant authentication.

By building modular and interoperable infrastructure, agencies can make identity verification more accessible, streamline user experiences and deliver more equitable, trusted public services.

Making identity systems transparent and accountable

While compliance and interoperability are essential to the safety and security of the technology being implemented, transparency is the true bridge between innovation and public trust.

Federal agencies must clearly communicate the parameters of biometric technology use, from where a user might encounter the tools to how the data is being stored, secured and used moving forward. One way to minimize risk is by keeping data localized with on-device storage and encryption to protect against centralized breaches.

Another way to improve transparency is by mandating independent audits and compliance reporting that align with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), setting a standard of accountability in federal practices.

This proactive transparency effort can strengthen public trust by showing progress in privacy and security, countering misinformation and reinforcing legislative oversight of tools and use cases.

Establishing guardrails that emphasize compliance and transparency ensure that biometric and digital ID tools serve constituents equitably and ethically. In turn, this improves trust long-term and sets expectations for future identity technology investments.

Trust is earned, not given

Every interaction between a public user and a biometric system is a trust-building exercise. From customs booths in the airport to background checks for employment, users are making decisions and formulating opinions on these tools and their capabilities.

Government, at every level, needs a proactive compliance strategy that prioritizes building confidence through secure-by-design approaches, limiting data retention and ensuring equal accessibility to official digital services.

Trust is also a function of usability. When identity verification can be completed in just a few seconds using a phone’s camera—without requiring additional hardware or constant connectivity—citizen confidence and adoption rates increase significantly.

Without strong guardrails and standards, biometrics are susceptible to misuse. So, transparency, privacy and accountability are critical to meeting mission goals that improve efficiency, strengthen security and build public credibility.

The future of government is as much about people as it is about the technology that’s coming. By embedding compliance, interoperability and transparency from the start, government leaders can build and sustain a digital ecosystem that places people and trust as the first priority.

About the author

Jesus Aragon is CEO and Co-Founder of Identy.io, a deep-tech company pioneering on-device biometric authentication for secure, password-less digital identity. With Agnitio Voice ID, he was part of the founding of the FIDO Alliance to shape the global standards for strong, phishing-resistant authentication. He began his career at Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments, before moving to Silicon Valley and holding various executive positions. Jesús successfully went through an IPO with Audience Inc. and drove Agnitio’s acquisition by Cirrus Logic. With more than two decades in mobile innovation, cybersecurity and M&A, he has built a global track record scaling technology ventures. An entrepreneur at heart, Aragón continues to drive the future of digital identity and privacy-by-design innovation.

Article Topics

digital ID  |  digital identity  |  digital trust  |  identity management  |  Identy  |  interoperability