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Exponent Completes Phase Two of First Responder Mobile Authentication with OPACITY ProjectKantara Initiative announced today that Exponent, Inc., (Nasdaq: EXPO) completed Phase Two of its smartphone project for Mobile Credentialing, Authentication and Attributes for First Responders using the NIST OPACITY standard extended to Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for secure authentication. The OPACITY-over BLE open-source protocol developed by Exponent for this project provides authorized personnel and first responders the ability to perform mobile-to-mobile authentication and gain access to temporary locations in the field, such as a secure perimeter around an emergency location, using their smartphone equipped with the BLE protocol. Expanding OPACITY based security to Bluetooth Low Energy ensures that mobile-to-mobile communications can also be conveniently and securely conducted over BLE and be operational in situations where there is no Internet connection. The project was developed by Exponent under Kantara's Identity and Privacy Incubator Program (KIPI). The open source code resulting from the project is available royalty-free at https://github.com/pivOPACITY. According to Dr. John Fessler, Principal Engineer at Exponent, "We at Exponent are excited about this Phase 2 work because, by incorporating OPACITY over BLE, we can enable BYOD capability as well as the ability to quickly provide rapid mutual authentication between two mobile devices both securely and at a distance. We believe this has potential applications far beyond the first responder use case to any situation where there is a need for authentication of an identity credential on a phone by personnel in the field. We look forward to others leveraging the code, which is freely available on GitHub, to bring these applications to reality."
About The First Responder Mobile Authentication Project Phase Two extends this capability (and the OPACITY standard) to BLE to establish secure, encrypted communications between two Bluetooth devices so that sensitive communications can be conveniently and securely conducted over BLE. First Responders can now use an NFC-enabled or BLE-enabled device such as a smartphone in the same way as a physical PIV Card to access secure locations improving convenience as well as options for difficult use cases such as a lost/stolen card or temporary credentials for non-PIV Card holders. Exponent's solution using OPACITY can establish communications and authenticate a holder of a derived credential in a few seconds with full cryptographic authentication, or under a half a second for lower-security applications such as transit. Exponent also extended the authentication process for full-secrecy, privacy enhanced mobile-to-mobile identity authentication over NFC or BLE. "Exponent's Mobile Authentication for First Responders Project is breaking new ground in the areas of verification, mobile authentication and physical access control. The industry's next wave of innovation and standards in identity will come from companies like Exponent that push the boundaries of the possible," said Colin Wallis, executive director, Kantara Initiative. "This project along with others currently under incubation with Kantara's KIPI Program all involve using mobile devices for improved digital identity solutions. The trend is clear. The progress made today will be the identity and access solutions of tomorrow."
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