WISEKEY’S DIGITAL IDENTITY MANAGEMENT SOLUTION CAN PROTECT SOCIAL NETWORKERS AND REDUCE FRAUD AND PERSONAL RISK
Ability to verify age and identity takes social networking environment to the next-generation through new found trust and control mechanisms
Geneva, Switzerland, Monday 22nd October 2007 - Wisekey - a leading provider of digital security identity and access management solutions - today announced, its proven CertifyID suite has the technological capability and methodologies to protect social networking environments, and help reduce fraud and the risk that social networker's largest profile groups (12 -16 year olds and 16-24 year olds) put themselves at, through the open exchange of personal information. CertifyID is a high-level, digital identity verification solution, designed specifically to authenticate that the person is who they say they are, and if it was applied with appropriate methodologies to social networks and web spaces such as FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube and blogs, it could be used to verify the user's identity and age to provide a safer virtual environment for people to network in.
Social networking has encouraged people to openly communicate and share personal information with strangers and the phenomenal exponential growth in this activity has opened up endless risk, putting many people (especially children) in a vulnerable position, and parents in an isolated one as they are unable to control or view their children's networking behaviour. Multitudes of people have become victims of having their 'identity' stolen for financial and social scams, and children and teenagers will cite that some of their friends are people they have only met in the virtual world, yet their age, and who they say there are can't be classified as legitimate, which leaves the users open to prey and offenders. Technology must evolve to provide a safer virtual world, for protection and peace-of-mind to all users and their trustees. Wisekey has achieved this by providing a secure solution - CertifyID - which can put an extra layer into the social networking infrastructures through the implementation of back-end validation procedures enabling the verification of age and identity through the users’ real-world social networks that can provide for such verifications to take place before joining and using a 'network'.
Wisekey's has already been worked on this sort of problem in Switzerland for online voting where age and identity verification, among other attributes, are a means of determining whether someone can vote online, and access certain electronic data. The digital identification technology has also been developed based on best-practice from the organization’s experience of working with Swiss banks, where a person's identity needs to be validated, while also protecting their anonymity and the secrecy of their identity. Wisekey's CertifyID solution can be customized to suit the social network's requirements and the platform can be built on a number of determining attributes such as age, proof of identity, and so on.
Carlos Moriera, CEO, Wisekey comments, " It is irresponsible of the owners of social networks to not build secure digital identification verification solutions into the networks, when this type of technology is available from providers such as Wisekey. Building trust and greater levels of control into the next-generation of social networks is essential, to ensure their longevity. The networks are about connecting people, and the experience should be authentic and real, to not only enhance the experience of the user, but also to protect them, and help parents of users be knowledgeable that although their children are in an 'unknown' environment they - and their credit cards - are protected."
Wisekey's CertifyID solution is built on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology, a key component of any highly secure identity-management solution. Wisekey is a Microsoft Gold Partner and works closely with Microsoft to provide organizations across the globe with secure information infrastructures, to safely communicate and make transactions electronically through a combination of software, encryption technologies, and processes, which effectively identify and authenticate individuals and devices.
About Wisekey
Wisekey is a leading information security and identity management company, and provides specialized security technologies for data protection, and effective identification and authentication of people and objects, over closed networks, physical infrastructures and the internet to ensure secure communications and e-transactions, without compromising trust. Established in 1999, and head quartered in Geneva Switzerland, Wisekey also has subsidiaries in Bulgaria, Lebanon, Spain, UK, and USA, to resolve advanced e-security issues for organizations in industry sectors such as defense, education, finance, and government. The organization has successfully partnered with technology giants such as HP, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Verisign for project implementations; and technology partners include Aladdin, Spyrus, Intercede, nCIPHER, and SafeNet. Wisekey is integrated into many security and identity access and management working groups and initiatives such as Clinton Global Initiative, OISTE (the organization for secure electronic transactions), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), WTO (World Trade Organization), and UN World Tourism Organization
Contact:
WISeKey SA:
Daniel Ybarra, VP Corporate Communication
Tel: +41-22-594-30-00
Email: dybarra@wisekey.com