The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced on Monday that it has awarded contracts to six startups for help in developing privacy-enhancing digital wallet technologies.
The six companies receiving awards are Credence ID, Hushmesh, Netis d.o.o., Procivis, SpruceID, and Ubiqu. Each will work to develop technologies that protect the privacy of individuals using digital wallets for immigration and travel.
“DHS is the authoritative source of some of the most highly valued credentials issued by the U.S. Federal Government for cross-border travel, demonstrating employment eligibility, residency status, and citizenship,” Anil John, technical director of S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), said in a press release.
“The capabilities developed under this solicitation will ensure that those credentials can be stored securely and verified properly while preserving the privacy of individuals using openly developed standards that are globally acceptable, highly secure, and accessible to all,” John added.
This first phase of awards comes after DHS first posted a solicitation on SAM.gov last summer, in partnership with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and DHS Privacy Office.
Each company received just under $200,000 in initial awards; however, DHS said each awardee is eligible for up to $1.7 million across four phases.
The six companies all plan to use some of their funding to adapt or enhance their current technology to support the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials Data Model (VCDM) and W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) standards. These standards are utilized by DHS digital credentialing systems.
“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is the United States’ authoritative issuer of highly valued credentials related to citizenship and immigration. Supporting standards-based digital credentials and secure digital wallets for storing them enables us to meet our customer expectations of ease, convenience, privacy, and security in an increasingly digital world,” said Jared Goodwin, acting chief program management and data division for Service Center Operations at the USCIS.
