Ep. 71 Equity and Federal Identity with Socure

May 23, 2023

(Today’s interview was conducted at the Caboose Brewery in lovely downtown Vienna, VA. Not far from Mae-East).

Covid prioritized identity verification. It went from the bottom of the tech stack to the top. Many federal agencies have zero trust initiatives divided into segments; each group starts with identification as the first pillar.

Our guest Jordan Burris has years of experience in managing identities for large organizations. He has worked in commercial enterprise technology as well as the Office of Management and Budget. During the interview, he makes the claim that digital identity is a critical infrastructure. Listen to the interview to see how he defends that statement.

Jordan begins the discussion with delineating verification, authentication, and access management. From there, we learn about the priority the White House has put on identity and he reviews some of the major initiatives the federal government has – from the Pandemic Anti-Fraud Act to the National Cybersecurity Strategy.

"Socure is a company who specializes in helping confirm that someone who is presenting themselves on line they are who they claim tome"

Jordan Burris, Socure Tweet

The headline in identity verification focuses on waste, fraud, and abuse. Of course, that makes sense. However, Jordan Burris brings out another aspect of identity management: American citizens who encounter friction when trying to get services from the federal government.

These could be people without credit history, homeless veterans, or even people without identification.

One of the value statements from Socure is to make sure equity is central to their mission. When a company can help make a federal agency more accessible because of efficient identification, the goal of equity is pushed forward.

Quick and accurate identity verification is the key to unlocking the power of today’s world that has less and less paper and more and more digital identities.

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to listen to Ep. 66 Improving Citizen Experience on Federal Website