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Securing America’s Digital Destiny is no small task, but it was the focus of our latest live event featuring a powerful voice in the identity space: Jordan Burris, Head of Public Sector at Socure and former White House advisor on cybersecurity and digital identity.
Jordan explored the deep-rooted challenges in today’s fragmented digital identity systems and laid out a five-pillar blueprint for building a more secure, inclusive, and fraud-resistant identity ecosystem. Topics included making digital identity part of critical infrastructure, establishing a national strategy, adopting a continuous identity model, and striking the right balance between privacy and trust.
Below, we’ve summarized the main insights and takeaways from the session, organized by topic. Whether you missed the live event or want a recap, these points highlight the most actionable ideas for anyone working on the future of identity.
Fraud’s Economic Toll
- Estimated fraud loss
- $500B+ annually—underreported due to lack of measurement tools.
- Pandemic as catalyst
- Rapid shift to digital exposed government systems to new levels of fraud.
- Modern ID can reduce fraud by:
- Replacing outdated verification standards (e.g., KYC minimums, PII-only checks).
- Moving from static identity to a predictive, continuously evolving model.
Government Hesitations & Structural Hurdles
- Why digital ID adoption stalls:
- Fear of centralized control and privacy backlash.
- U.S. political structure creates separation of power that delays decisions.
- Agencies often lack funding autonomy—must go through Congress.
- Public resistance to replacing legacy systems (e.g., Social Security Numbers).
- State-by-state complexity
- Fragmentation makes national rollout challenging (“If you’ve seen one state, you’ve seen one state.”)
The Five Pillars of Securing America’s Digital Destiny
1. Designating Digital Identity as Critical Infrastructure
- Why it matters
- Identity underpins nearly every modern service (benefits, banking, disaster relief, etc.).
- Identity should be treated like financial systems or the power grid—core to national stability.
- Key actions
- Update Presidential Policy Directives to include digital identity.
- Treat identity as a holistic system, not siloed parts.
- Prioritize funding and resources accordingly.
2. Unifying National Strategy and Coordination
- Need for cohesion
- Current system is fragmented across states, agencies, and policies.
- Essential steps
- Establish a national digital identity strategy with clearly assigned responsibilities.
- Standardize policies to avoid conflicting approaches across states and agencies.
- Promote interoperability across borders (especially critical for travel and commerce).
- Public education
- Normalize digital ID through public awareness (e.g., Face ID adoption).
- Transparency to build trust and adoption.
3. Transparency and Measurement
- Set identity-specific metrics
- Define KPIs to measure fraud reduction, access improvements, etc.
- Regular public reporting
- Encourage periodic audits and publishing outcomes.
- Citizen feedback loop
- Improve public input methods on regulations and identity system evolution.
4. Creating a National Fraud Prevention Network
- Formation of a Digital Identity Task Force
- Housed potentially in the White House to lead nationwide fraud-fighting coordination.
- Learn from cybersecurity practices
- Share fraud signals and attack patterns across the ecosystem.
- Build consortium-based intelligence sharing.
- Public-private partnerships
- The government must lead, but the private sector is essential to execution.
- International collaboration
- Collaborate across borders to prevent nation-state fraud and related criminal activity.
5. Harnessing American Innovation
- Break through "analysis paralysis"
- Governments often over-analyze new technologies before adoption.
- Recent positive steps
- Executive orders and OMB guidance on using AI show progress.
- Key initiatives
- Invest in R&D for identity fraud prevention and emerging tech like AI and quantum.
- Train a future-ready identity workforce starting at universities.
Identity as a Continuum
- Identity changes over time
- Names, addresses, devices, even life events (e.g., marriage) alter one’s digital footprint.
- Modern systems must support
- Continuous monitoring and reassessment.
- Lifecycle-based assurance, not one-time checks.
Global Interoperability & the EU
- EU Digital ID wallet and mDLs as comparison
- The EU has more cohesion and momentum via regulation (e.g., eIDAS 2.0).
- U.S. must follow
- Interoperability will become essential for travel, commerce, and trust.
- A 2–3 year window could be realistic for U.S. framework development.
Public and Private Digital ID Coexistence
- Blended identity models
- Citizens should be able to combine government and private credentials.
- Unlocks broader use cases and improves usability.
- Adoption accelerators
- More use cases = more adoption (e.g., using mDLs for gaming, travel, benefits).
- Governments can accelerate adoption by mandating use while accounting for inclusion.
Privacy vs. Security
- Balancing the two
- Preventing fraud requires a complete picture (biometrics, device, behavior, credentials).
- Binding identity to reusable verifiable credentials must include:
- Consent at issuance
- Ongoing trust reassessment
- Continuous identity
- Not one-time binding, but dynamic verification over time.
- Events like device change or suspicious behavior should trigger re-evaluation.
Organizational Identity & Fraud
- Fraud is not limited to individuals
- Fake applicants are making it through job screenings undetected.
- Organizational identity needs
- Verify both personal and professional personas for workforce safety and integrity.
