News
Kantara Initiative First to Market with NIST SP 800-63-3 Third Party Assessment, Approval and Trust Mark
May 2018 by Marc Jacob
Kantara Initiative announced that, through its Identity Assurance Program, it is the first organization in the US to offer third-party grant of Trust Mark to service providers who are compliant with the Identity Assurance Level 2 and Authenticator Assurance Level 2 of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-63 revision 3 of the Digital Identity Guidelines. Kantara is the leading global consortium improving trustworthy use of identity and personal data through innovation, standardization and good practice.
NIST SP 800-63-3 is the set of digital identity guidelines to which US Federal agencies implementing identity verification and authentication must comply. It also serves as a widely-recognized benchmark for any organization or business wishing to implement identity verification and authentication services. Kantara is a US Federal Government Identity and Access Management (FICAM) program approved Trust Framework Solution Provider. Kantara’s programs verify an organization’s adoption of varying sets of business and technical policies and profiles including NIST SP 800-63-3. Adopters include Experian, ID.me and Verizon. The program is also referenced by the Canadian, New Zealand, and Swedish Governments.
"NIST SP 800-63-3 is focused on modernizing the policy in keeping with rising threat levels for identity verification and authentication whilst also improving privacy and the overall digital user experience," said Colin Wallis, Executive Director, Kantara Initiative. "Kantara has developed assessment criteria to drive consistency in third party assessments against the requirements laid out in the NIST guidelines and added them into our Trust Framework. This makes us the first organization to third-party assess, approve and grant trust marks to qualifying identity and credential service providers. We believe that this provides an important service to federal agencies and other relying parties whilst also providing a significant market differentiator in the industry for companies that have adopted Kantara’s Trust Framework."
