Sec. 2. Findings

331 words·~2 min read·/bill/116/hr/8214/ih/section-2

A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

Congress finds the following: NIST’s work in identity research and standards is unmatched anywhere in the world, with global standards development organizations like the Financial Action Task Force

(FATF)pointing to NIST guidance in its own standards. Given that adversaries continue to exploit weaknesses in digital identity systems to conduct successful cyber-attacks, additional NIST resources are needed to help government and industry secure identity in cyberspace. The lack of an easy, affordable, and reliable way for organizations and businesses to identify whether an individual is who they claim to be online creates an attack vector that is widely exploited by adversaries in cyberspace and precludes many high value transactions from being available online. According to the identity theft resource center, incidents of identity theft and identity fraud continue to rise in the United States, where more than 164,000,000 consumer records containing personally identifiable information were breached in 2019, increasing the total number of data breaches by 17 percent from the previous year. According to the Insurance Information Institute, in 2018, losses resulting from identity fraud amounted to $16,800,000,000. The inadequacy of current digital identity solutions degrades security and privacy for all Americans, and next generation solutions are needed that improve both security and privacy. Government entities, as authoritative issuers of identity in the United States, are uniquely positioned to deliver critical components that address deficiencies in our digital identity infrastructure and augment private sector digital identity and authentication solutions. State governments are particularly well suited to play a role in enhancing digital identity solutions used by both the public and private sectors, given the role of State governments as the issuers of driver’s licenses and other identity documents commonly used today. It should be the policy of the Government to use the authorities and capabilities of the Government to enhance the security, reliability, privacy, and convenience of digital identity solutions that support and protect transactions between individuals, government entities, and businesses, and that enable Americans to prove who they are online.