DHS awards Digital Bazaar funding to develop blockchain security technology

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate awarded $199,984 to Digital Bazaar, a company based in Blacksburg, Va., to develop blockchain security technology.

The award was made by S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP). The Phase 1 award project, called “Interoperable Enterprise Identity and Credential Life-cycle Management,” would explore the application of blockchain to issue credentials digitally to enhance security, ensure interoperability, and prevent forgery and counterfeiting.

Specifically, it would help U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services more securely verify eligibility requirements; licenses and certifications for travel, citizenship, and immigration status; employment eligibility; and supply chain security.

The current issuance processes are typically paper-based and do not facilitate data exchange. These systems could be susceptible to loss, destruction, forgery and counterfeiting.

“Deploying innovative credential issuance technologies within mature organizations requires integration with existing technology and processes to manage the lifecycle of digital credentials.” Anil John, SVIP Technical Director, said. “Digital Bazaar building out the enterprise credential lifecycle management capabilities of their existing platform while utilizing emerging W3C global standards mitigates enterprise risk in supporting and utilizing these standards within and across organizations.”

Digital Bazaar proposes to build out its digital credentialing and blockchain application solution to build a viable credentialing product.