Agencies face significant challenges in protecting beneficiary information and ensuring the integrity of their programs. Appropriately balancing access and security—while considering nuanced program circumstances and populations—is vital to meaningfully improving public benefits and delivery. NIST, along with the Digital Benefits Network at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University and the Center for Democracy and Technology are working on this issue with the launch of a two-year-long collaborative research and development project.
This project works to adapt NIST’s Digital Identity Guidelines to better support the implementation of public benefits policy and delivery while balancing security, privacy, equity, and usability. The project will result in a voluntary community profile of NIST’s Digital Identity Guidelines to support and empower practitioners and public sector leaders in evaluating the necessity and degree of authentication (and identity-proofing practices) in benefits delivery.