The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced on January 14 that it has awarded $197,020.95 Phase 1 funding to Stranger Labs, Inc. based in Cambridge, MA, to develop a digital credential solution that mitigates compromising the usability and convenience of paper-based credentials by making digital credentials verifiable offline.
Stranger Labs will
enable issuance, exchange and verification of digital credentials in an
isolated environment — directly between devices, with no internet, LAN, or
cellular connectivity — without sacrificing integrity guarantees or the ability
to establish credentials’ provenance while simultaneously enabling control of
credentials from multiple devices. This offline solution proposes safe and
secure digital credentials with paper-like usability and availability.
“Balancing the usability and convenience of paper-based credentials with the security possible using strong cryptographic methods is a well-known trade-off when it comes to the adoption and daily usage of digital credentials,” said Anil John, SVIP technical director. “Stranger Labs is developing technology that directly tackles this problem end-to-end while supporting broad interoperability based on emerging World Wide Web Consortium standards such as decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials.”
Source: DHS
By Loren Blinde
January 16, 2020
