A newly developed Cross-Sector Digital Identity Initiative - led by Northrop Grumman, Microsoft, CA Technologies, and CertiPath - has been demonstrated as a "Proof of Concept" for the administration's announcement of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.

Unveiled by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke during an event at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NSTIC identifies a set of guiding principles for accelerating the use of trusted digital identity credentials. The strategy aims to deploy a system that helps secure transactions on the Internet, improve the public's awareness and control of personal information and stimulate growth of online commerce.

The Cross-Sector Digital Identity Initiative brings together private and public sector participants to demonstrate key NSTIC concepts and to identify barriers to adoption across technical, political, social and economic domains.

"Northrop Grumman is honored to be part of this industry team that is focused on an initiative to protect and secure our national infrastructure," said Alan Leckenby, business and identity solutions vice president for Northrop Grumman Information Systems.

"Strengthening data security while preserving privacy remains a key challenge across all domains. To help protect privacy, NSTIC calls for sharing only the amount of data necessary for a transaction and for users to have better control over the flow of their personal information. Our proof of concept will demonstrate ways that privacy and security can successfully co-exist."

"Microsoft supports the NSTIC vision for a citizen centric privacy enhanced identity ecosystem," said Scott Charney, corporate vice president, Microsoft Corporation.

"Creating this ecosystem will provide citizens with a variety of choices for authenticating their identity online while helping to protect their security and privacy. Realizing this vision brings us closer towards a safer, more trusted Internet."

"Knowing and trusting the identities involved in a transaction - whether it's business-to-consumer, business-to-business or government-to-citizen - is critical to securing online commerce and business enablement," said Mike Denning, general manager, Security, CA Technologies.

"We are proud to support such an important White House effort by providing the solutions that help authenticate an individual and verify that a person is who they claim to be."

"Creating an online environment where consumers, businesses and government can engage and work together, securely and with the peace of mind that comes from deep-seated trust is critical to today's innovation economy," said Jeff Nigriny, chief executive officer and president of CertiPath.

"We're extremely pleased to join in this partnership that will demonstrate the viability and scalability of trusted identities for all."

The Cross-Sector Digital Identity Initiative will prove their concept - a proposed "trusted architecture framework" - through various real-life case scenarios. This scenario will show how mobile devices enabled with cloud-based, trusted identity credentials can be used to authenticate online transactions in a way that improves both security and privacy.