Grant: NSTIC planning proceeding despite uncertain funding

WILLIAMSBURG, VA - The National Institute of Standards and Technology is continuing with plans to begin National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace pilots in the current fiscal year despite funding uncertainties, said Jeremy Grant, NIST senior executive advisor for identity management.

Grant participated in an Oct. 24 identity management panel held during the annual Executive Leadership Conference. The House of Representatives version of the fiscal 2012 NIST appropriations bill would give the agency no money to proceed with NSTIC pilots, while the Senate Appropriations Committee voted in their Sept. 15 markup to fund the program at $24 million. Congress has yet to pass any of the fiscal 2012 appropriations bills; the federal government currently operates under a continuing resolution that expires on midnight of Nov. 18.

NIST is working under the assumption that pilot funding will come through, Grant said.

He said NIST would like to indeed set up multiple pilots and have the pilots cross industrial sectors. NSTIC "is not trying to solve something only in banking or only in online commerce or only in state government," Grant said.

"It's looking for interoperable credentialing solutions that the average consumer can use in all those places and every other place they go online," he said.

He added that he hopes that consortia of identity providers with customers across various industrial sectors will form to bid on the eventual NSTIC pilots solicitation, "actually demonstrating the identity ecosystem in miniature to show it's feasible."

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