Prevent unwanted sharing of personal data, including credit card numbers.
In our digital-driven world, personal and
sensitive data are at the core of all the stakes, challenges and threats.
This reality drives a set of holistic initiatives,
projects, developments and actions.
At IBM, they focus on a cloud-based technology susceptible
to help consumers better protect online personal data, including date of birth,
home address and credit card numbers.
Connectikpeople.co observe that, the technology, called Identity Mixer,
uses a cryptographic algorithm to encrypt the certified identity attributes of
a user, such as their age, nationality, address and credit card number in a way
that allows the user to reveal only selected pieces to third parties.
Identity Mixer can be used within a digital wallet, which contains
credentials certified by a trusted third party, such as a government-issued
electronic identity card.
According researchers, the issuer of the credentials has no knowledge of
how and when they are being used.
“Identity Mixer enables users to choose precisely which data to share, and with whom”, said Christina Peters, IBM’s Chief Privacy Officer. “Now web service providers can improve their risk profile and enhance trust with customers, and it’s all in the cloud, making it easy for developers to program.”
Identity Mixer is now available for developers as an easy-to-use web
service in IBM Bluemix, IBM's new platform-as-a-service (PaaS).
Beginning this spring, Bluemix subscribers will be able to experiment with
Identity Mixer within their own applications and web services. Using simple
pull-down menus, developers can choose the types of data that they wish to
secure and Bluemix will provide the code, which can then be embedded in their
services.
“We wanted individuals to have control over what they reveal about themselves, ‘’said, Dr. Anna Lysyanskaya, a co-inventor of Identity Mixer, who is currently a professor of computer science at Brown University. “With Identity Mixer now in the cloud, developers have a very strong cryptographic tool that makes privacy practical; it is a piece of software that you can incorporate into any identity management service enabling the service to verify that an individual is an authorized user without revealing any other personal information."
