FIDO Alliance Calls for Better Identity Proofing Tech in Wake of House Hearing

The FIDO Alliance received considerable praise during last week’s House hearing on Identity in Financial Services. Speaking before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on behalf of the Better Identity Coalition, Venable LLP’s Jeremy Grant identified three main challenges facing modern financial institutions, and argued that FIDO standards offer potential solutions to all three of those problems.

The problems in question are synthetic identity fraud, authentication, and identity verification when onboarding new customers. Grant went on to explain that authentication practices are improving thanks to the growing popularity of secure password-free alternatives.

“With industry initiatives like the FIDO Alliance creating next-generation authentication standards that are getting baked into most devices, browsers and operating systems, it is becoming easier than ever to deliver on the vision of better security, privacy and convenience,” Grant said in his testimony.

He went on to suggest that unfortunately it is becoming more difficult to prove the identity of a new customer during the initial account creation process, “in part because attackers have caught up to the tools we have depended on for identity proofing and verification.”

In a post on its website, the FIDO Alliance echoed Grant’s request for government and industry leaders to promote the development of better identity-proofing technology to bring them more in line with FIDO’s strong authentication standards. A previous government report encouraged the IRS to adopt those standards.

The FIDO Alliance is currently searching for speakers for its “Authenticate” industry conference.