Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[Fullmoon]

NIH First to Use OpenID

http://www.executivegov.com/2010/03/nih-first-to-use-openid/

The National Institutes of Health is one of the first federal agencies to use OpenID. This service will allow researchers, as well as other visitors, to access privacy-protected sites by entering one password at a time. Users can easily switch between different secure sites without having to continually enter a login credentials.

According to NextGov, Peter Alterman, senior advisor to the NIH chief information officer for strategic initiatives, “It’s a real advantage for the user, who doesn’t have to get another password and try to remember it.”

“The less personal information that we have to keep, the safer things are,” said Alterman. An advantage of this new service is that government agencies will not have to maintain a list of all IDs and passwords.

The General Services Administration has approved the Open Identity Exchange Technology, which is the coalition of providers including Google, PayPal and Equifax.