Major industry ID providers to participate in pilot programs for open government and open identity

Another interesting development around e-Government or Government 2.0 in the US:

Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo, Wave Systems Pilot Open Identity for Open Government

 Ten industry leaders — Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo and Wave Systems — announced today they will support the first pilot programs designed for the American public to engage in open government — government that is transparent, participatory, and collaborative. This open identity initiative is a key step in President Obama’s memorandum to make it easy for individuals to register and participate in government websites — without having to create new usernames and passwords. Additionally, members of the public will be able to fully control how much or how little personal information they share with the government at all times.

These companies will act as digital identity providers using OpenID and Information Card technologies. The pilot programs are being conducted by the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and related agencies. The participating companies are being certified under non-discriminatory open trust frameworks developed under collaboration between the OpenID Foundation (OIDF) and the Information Card Foundation (ICF) and reviewed by the federal government.
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