Equifax Selects Anakam As I-Card Partner

ICF Steering Member Equifax Inc. announced this week that it has chosen Anakam, Inc. to provide the electronic authenticator for the Equifax I-Card. Anakam will implement its Anakam.TFA® Two Factor Authentication service, making the Equifax I-Card the first to have the maximum ease of use as well as the highest level of authentication security (Level 3) in the marketplace.

According to ICF board member Ron Carpinella, Equifax's Vice President of Identity Management, "This speaks to our efforts to provide strong authentication for the U.S. federal government via i-cards and the ICAM trust framework." The Information Card Foundation, together with the OpenID Foundation, has been instrumental in working with the U.S. GSA Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) Subcommittee to create a trust framework that enables U.S. citizens to use open identity credentials to access U.S. government websites.

The Anakam platform will be incorporated into the Equifax I-Card offering to provide on-going two-factor authentication without the need for distribution of smart cards and hard tokens to end users while still complying with the standards established around these devices. With Level 3 authentication, there is high confidence in the validity of the user's asserted identity as determined by U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines and the technical recommendations of the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies (NIST).

This standard, which is integral to the ICAM trust framework, is commonly applied for the protection of remote or Web access to sensitive or private information, and it is typically used in government, healthcare, financial, and education transactions. It also complies with international privacy and security requirements.

Said ICF Executive Director Drummond Reed, "Equifax and Anakam are providing a very practical way to meeting the strong authentication required by the higher levels of assurance the ICAM trust framework requires for access to sensitive information on government websites. This is another example of how Information Card technology can help both citizens and government save very significant time and money in conducting many more interactions safely over electronic networks."

For additional details see the full press release.