Tag Archives: new member

1. What is the mission and vision of the CREA?

Our mission is to support REALTORS® in service to their clients through the provision of services and standards that enrich the REALTOR® profession and reputation and to advocate for public policy that ensures Canadians can fulfill their home and property rights and aspirations. Our vision is that REALTORS® are the chosen, trusted and respected professionals for consumer real estate needs.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

As technology continues to develop and touch all aspects of life, it’s more important than ever to create secure proof of identity and authentication in the digital space that enables individuals, organizations and governments to have confidence in their digital interactions. Ultimately, digital identity is critical to ensure people can trust the services they receive online and help reduce occurrences of cyber fraud that can erode this trust.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

Digital identity is quickly becoming a key feature in the 21st century economy as innovation and economic growth is, for the most part, happening online. Developing a strong digital identity framework in Canada will help build global trust and could lead to increased capacity for international collaboration in many different sectors.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada’s forward thinking and focus on the protection of personal information provides it with the unique opportunity to become a leader in the development and adoption of digital identity and authentication technologies. As technology companies continue to choose Canada as the destination to develop their products and services, Canada is well-positioned to be a strong international voice in this space.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

As the real estate industry continues to shift online and adopt digital tools, the need for trusted digital identity for both REALTORS® and their clients has become essential. CREA joined the DIACC to become a part of the ongoing discussions and valuable work happening on this subject, with the goal of being part of the solution to this important issue.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry Associations. Our membership includes more than 135,000 real estate brokers, agents and salespeople, working through 78 real estate Boards and Associations across Canada.

1.What is the mission and vision of Trust Science?

Trust Science ® is a FinTech SaaS that delivers Credit Bureau 2.0 ® / Credit Bureau + ™. Its mission is to help deserving people get the loans they deserve. The service gives lenders highly accurate scores about underbanked and financially stressed borrowers in a fair, ethical and compliant way. This solution repairs the on-ramp to the modern credit economy, improving financial inclusivity while simultaneously boosting lender profitability.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

Even in multi-billion dollar credit bureaus, data often crosses individuals, leading to frequent mix-ups and inaccurate credit reporting (i.e. lost opportunities for deserving borrowers or fraud committed by un-deserving people). With a trustworthy digital identity and interoperable digital credentials, lenders can ensure that individual data is correct and correctly attributed. As well, given the trends in Consumer Protection and Privacy laws, trustworthy identity is the first step toward returning control and consent to the use of personal data back to its rightful owners. Furthermore, in the rapidly emerging market of alternative credit underwriting, where Trust Science is a leader, digital identity enables new application processes, giving new-age credit bureaus fast and secure access to more data points for more accurate scoring. Trust Science believes that digital identity solutions will form the backbone of financially inclusive credit scoring and will be instrumental in a variety of other contexts.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

Interoperable digital credentials will transform all economies by significantly reducing cost and time for all forms of applications and sharing sensitive, verified information. Trust Science is designed to be a compliant service in all jurisdictions so that it can improve borrowing outcomes for global citizens and lenders. This is evidenced, in part, by a massive patent and trademark estate (comprising over 4 dozen patents, trademarks and pending patents across 18 different countries, and counting.) To support this transformation, Trust Science is pioneering the application of digital identity in the credit reporting industry. It is a Founding Steward of the Sovrin.org Identity network alongside industry heavyweights and it has now proudly joined DIACC. It will also provide services/consulting and its Smart Consent™ software to lenders and their borrowers to enable a transition to the use of digital credentials in loan applications, as digital wallets proliferate among consumers. As well, the company is working with regulatory bodies in both Canada (OSFI) and in the U.S. (RFI submission re: Explainable AI to 5 federal agencies in June 2021) to ensure that modern technology and its capabilities are fully understood and appreciated by all stakeholders, especially the topmost banking regulators.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada undisputedly has the technological capabilities and knowledge needed to be a global leader in digital identity and trust services. A strong supporter of digital identity standards, Trust Science is excited to be a part of that leadership, especially with the Canadian government’s “User-Centric Verifiable Digital Credentials” initiatives.

At a practical and real-world level, Canada shares the world’s longest border with the world’s biggest and most advanced economic and technological actor.  It is incumbent on a partner in such a relationship to meet or beat best practices in all matters of identity and services (like money transfer) that rely on trust and KYC. Turning to the global space, Canada must continue to support domestically-driven innovations to maintain its position of leadership and continue to set the global pace of digital identity standards in the customary Canadian way: fair, ethical, and inclusive.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

Trust Science joined DIACC to facilitate partnerships with other members that will further the adoption of emerging digital credential standards. The company believes that these partnerships will form the foundation of a strong Canadian ecosystem of digital identity companies and that all the different players’ collective experiences working on the cutting-edge of the tightly regulated lending industry will provide mutually valuable insights among each other.  Trust Science looks forward to networking and collaborating with other DIACC members in a way that helps Canada maintain its reputation for having a very strong banking/lending sector and healthy financial (including Insurance industry) institutions.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

Trust Science provides automated loan underwriting solutions leveraging traditional credit bureaus’ data, alternate data, and user-permissioned data. Given the risk associated with centrally stored personal data accessed during the loan application process, Trust Science aims to enable migration to decentralized digital credentials that will increase security and privacy while also significantly simplifying the application process. Put simply, Trust Science offers lending leaders a fair and ethical way of scoring financially stressed or under-banked customers, right now.

DIACC is very pleased to welcome Accenture as a member. In this spotlight interview, DIACC President Joni Brennan connects with Iliana Oris Valiente, Managing Director, Canada Innovation Strategy and Blockchain Lead and Christine Leong, Global Lead Blockchain and Biometrics, to hear their thoughts on digital ID and the great work that Accenture is doing in this space.

DIACC Spotlight on Accenture – YouTube

1.What is the mission and vision of ValidCert?

Our Mission is built on a foundation of Protection, Validation and Empowerment. The ValidCert Vision creates an Eco-System of Trust. Our Eco-System of Trust (1) Protects Digital Identity and Micro-Certificates (2) Provides Validation of Credentials by Government Approved Institutions (3) Empowers Life-Long Learning

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

There is a global need for upskilling and reskilling which is creating a focus on shorter courses and micro-credentials. The approach to education and learning is changing and the technology has to focus on protecting and providing a forum for Digital Identity and Credentials to help bridge the skills gap. If individuals, globally, can safely and efficiently claim who they are and share validated micro-credentials in a protected environment, this will have a positive impact on streamlining the hiring and recruiting process which directly adds economic value. Reducing fraud, protecting rights and increasing transparency can increase efficiency for existing and emerging markets.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

In order for Digital Identity to be successful, governments globally need to collaborate on creating interoperability to ensure individuals are protected when information is being shared. Risks need to be focused on, which include cybersecurity threats and data breaches. Digital Identity can be directly connected to economic value with increased use of financial services, increased access to employment opportunities all resulting in reduced costs and time savings for resources. According to McKinsey & Company, a subset of key focus areas for Canada and governments globally include cost savings, reduced fraud, and improved labour productivity all impacting the economy. ValidCert addresses challenges associated with this transformation by focusing on the key focus areas. Our platform is low-cost focused on enhancing processes surrounding assigning micro-credentials, providing a platform for Students/Job Seekers that is supported by the Learning Institutions that 3rd parties, such as recruiters, are invited to review. We are protecting the identity of the Issuer, Assignee and the Viewer, who are all major players in our Trust Eco-System. This will assist in reducing fraud as well as ensure that individuals’ identities and credentials are validated to be a “fit” for the job they are seeking. This will save time and resources for hiring companies, whether private or public.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has a very important role to play as a leader in digital identity and trust services. This includes developing, in collaboration with organizations and other countries, policies and frameworks to ensure acceptance of digital identities. Similar to a currency, Digital Identities need to have cross-border acceptance.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

We joined DIACC because we have trust in the objectives and vision of DIACC and its’ members. DIACC is creating a collaborative community to share knowledge and information to create sustainable solutions for Canada and for other countries. As part of DIACC, we are fortunate to be a part of the SIG (special interest group) for Digital Credentials which is validating the ValidCert Mission and Vision. We are not only learning but sharing our technology, research and experiences in order to move the Digital ID Dial forward.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

We are utilizing the best of Private and Public Technology environments so institutions and individuals can decide what information they want to share. We are protecting the accomplishments of all existing and future users of the Valid-Cert Eco-System!

1.What is the mission and vision of Sterling Backcheck?

Sterling Backcheck’s mission is to provide the foundation of trust and safety for our clients so they can create great environments for their most essential resource, people. Sterling Backcheck’s vision is the world where verified identity information should be owned and accessible easily by the individual.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

So much of our lives is now in a digital format, both personally and professionally. We rely on technology to handle sensitive information, which, if not done correctly, can put us in jeopardy. Digital Identity is a crucial safeguard to preventing identity fraud, which could result in a significant damage to people’s life. Digital Identity is a key enabler to unlocking the next frontier of the digital economy. Through trustworthy Digital Identity, we can enable a safe digital future.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

The World Bank estimates that roughly 1 billion people lack an official foundational identification. Millions have forms of identification that cannot be reliably verified or authenticated, resulting in exclusion from economic opportunities. Our parent company, Sterling, has been working on the creation of a digital identity wallet to help address the challenges worldwide. By joining DIACC, Sterling Backcheck hopes to help bridge that gap and offer a platform for trustworthy ID verification.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has always been the pioneer on the identity front. For example, unlike many other countries, ID verification is required before starting a background check in Canada. In addition, Canada has always emphasized the importance of data privacy and storage. Building on those principles, Canada is well positioned to lead the conversation on digital identity services.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

At Sterling Backcheck, we aspire to a vision that Digital identity verification should only have to occur once and personal identity verification should only be shared, when necessary and proportional to the need. Individuals and organizations should mutually benefit from digital identity innovation. While technology has created opportunities to enhance digital identity, we’ve also noticed examples of some migration away from sound identity verification practices. We see DIACC as an important vehicle to bolster and promulgate sound digital identity practices. We joined to help forward the mission of DIACC towards that goal.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

Sterling Backcheck is a pioneer in background screening, having revolutionized the industry with eConsent, a fully online platform for collecting candidate consent prior to starting their check. Through our proactive and collaborative approach working with the federal authorities that govern our industry, we have continuously offered a safe and secure way for organizations to conduct background screening. We conduct over a million criminal record checks on behalf of thousands of employers annually. There is no question that our processes have been refined over the years. We’re always looking for ways to innovate and continue to offer best in class service to our clients.

1. What is the mission and vision of BlueShore Financial?

BlueShore Financial’s mission: “Passionately improving our clients’ financial well-being in an interconnected, digital world.”

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

Trustworthy digital identity is critical to enable the continued development of a robust digital economy in Canada, and the potential direct and indirect benefits that come with it for all Canadians. Furthermore, lack of  a common trusted digital identity approach could result in a patchwork of various digital ID schemes, which would not only cause confusion for Canadians (and thus much slower adoption), but also create easy targets for cyber criminals.

From a financial industry perspective, a trustworthy digital ID is a critical component to successfully implement Open Banking, one of the globally accepted key trends in banking.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

Two of the most populous countries in the world have established digital IDs: India with its government issued Unique ID (UID) number—or Aadhaar—identity program, and China with its digital identify provided by Ant Financial. These two countries are most populous with emerging economies. To remain a global player, Canada has to be able to compete with the likes of India and China when it comes to technology-savviness

Several other countries now have national digital identify programs and while these programs may not be perfect, they are evolving – Canada needs to do the same. Canada needs to start with a digital identity program, and then use an agile and iterative approach to evolve and keep up with new technologies as well as consumer needs and demands. Since Canada is somewhat late to the game, Canada can learn from the experience of other countries in both technology implementations and consumer rollout, which I know DIACC and its members from across the spectrum of government, finance, healthcare, telco, retail, auditors, etc., are discussing and working through DIACC Pan-Canadian Trusted Framework approach.

BlueShore addresses the challenges in two ways:

I. Internally we see digital identity as a core component of our digital transformation journey.

II. Broadly, digital identity is part of our conversations from Open Banking, to Payments Modernization to Data Privacy. We also work closely and in a “spirit of partnership” with our core technology partners.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has a role to play as a G7 member to show digital leadership with respect to developing and launching a national digital identity program. Not only would this provide opportunities for Canadian businesses, but it would also demonstrate a model of how government and industries are able to work together to provide a key digital tool for Canadian consumers.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

BlueShore saw the work DIACC and its members were doing defining, creating and building a national digital identity framework. It was this framework approach that attracted our attention to bolster our digital transformation work.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

BlueShore Financial is a boutique financial institution providing a full range of personal and business banking, wealth management, insurance and commercial lending solutions. With a branch network located across the Vancouver Lower Mainland and Sea-to-Sky Corridor, BlueShore Financial helps clients achieve financial wellness® through personalized solutions and expert advice, delivered in a unique Financial Spa® branch environment. BlueShore Financial manages over $6.5 billion in Assets Under Administration and is consistently ranked among the top 20 financial planning firms in Metro Vancouver.

BlueShore Financial is an Imagine Canada Caring Company, contributing at least 1% of pre-tax profits annually to charities and not-for-profit organizations within the communities it serves. BlueShore Financial is the operating name of BlueShore Financial Credit Union.

1. What is the mission and vision of Yubico?

Yubico was founded in Sweden with the mission to protect all internet citizens, making secure login easy and available to everyone.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

Stolen credentials are a top online security risk for individuals and companies. Breaches cause severe financial, brand, and personal impact. It’s critical that people, and organizations, have access to solutions for all their different requirements.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

Digital identity is critical for citizens, governments, and the private sector. As our lives move more and more online, our ability to identify ourselves in a secure, easy way will be key in order to access government systems, banking, and interact with goods and services providers.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has the opportunity to be a world leader in the digital identity space. Our emergence as a highly desirable destination for up-and-coming tech companies, along with the coinciding tech talent, places Canada in a unique position. In order to capitalize on Canada’s emergence, it will require a strong partnership between the private and public sectors to help enable citizens, clients, and employees to have a safe online experience. Organizations like the DIACC are paramount in bringing together the key stakeholders to help achieve this shared goal that will truly benefit every Canadian.

5. Why did Yubico join the DIACC?

Yubico has been a leader and innovator in the authentication space for over a decade. In 2020 Yubico decided to put its first sales and technical resources in Canada due to the growing demand for our products. DIACC has a reputation for bringing together like-minded organizations and people that share a vision of improved digital identity.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

Yubico pioneered the design of the first one-time password authenticator to work with a simple touch and with no client software, and we made it compatible with the open authentication standard OATH. We then further secured and simplified the PIV smart card standard by adding touch-to-sign and built-in attestation. Yubico collaborated with Google and Microsoft to co-create the FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) and FIDO2 open authentication standards. Our work has contributed to open identity standards organizations W3C, IETF, FIDO Alliance and OpenID.

1.What is the mission and vision of one37 Solutions?

Our mission is to unlock the potential of the universal identity with privacy, security and trust, one experience at time.

Our vision is to deliver unparalleled personalized user experience built on decentralized secure identity platform.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

The economic costs of the fragmented identity systems across various channels and businesses, the weak identity systems resulting in identity theft, SIM swaps and account takeovers, and increased corporate liability due to data breaches and regulatory non-compliance are skyrocketing and taxing in both existing and emerging markets.

The implementation of trustworthy digital identity systems will have exponential effects on the market growth and efficiency by streamlining and simplifying daily processes between citizens, governments and service providers in existing markets looking for efficiency and in emerging markets looking to close their digital gap and gaining security and speed of implementation.

At the onset, the rollout of decentralized identity systems seems both timely and significant. However, considering the various challenges that the global industries such as travel and healthcare have been currently facing in the form of security threats, adherence to health norms or regulatory compliances, there is a digital race to incorporate all of the above through a single trust platform while also ensuring a truly seamless experience. Thus, to stay competitive and build customer loyalty, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way new advancements in technologies can be incorporated to balance such rising risk and opportunity demands.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

A trusted digital identity will have a major impact on the Canadian and world economies by adding tremendous value to a country GDP. The speed of trust will have ripple effects on every aspect of the economy.

one37 provides a state-of-the-art, safe and secure decentralized identity platform for identity verification in verticals such as travel and health. We are working with our partners and service providers to improve the daily lives of citizens in various scenarios such as “Contactless & Touchless Travel” and facilitate the seamless interactions between travelers and service providers along their journey while ensuring user authenticity, data integrity, compliance and governance for all relevant stakeholders within an ecosystem.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada is the world leader in digital identity and the protection of privacy and personal information. By championing the implementation of a decentralized identity technology across the public and private sectors, Canada will provide the role model for the decentralized identity implementation across the world and foster unprecedented growth in the digital identity economy. Canada is in a unique position to shape the future of travel, healthcare, banking and governmental services with monumental implications on both the governmental and corporate sectors worldwide.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

To  participate in the on-going discussions and the valuable work that DIACC is spearheading in digital identity and the implementation of the PCTF and be able to add value, work with other companies and partners and contribute in return to the growth of the identity economy.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

Every one37 team member is a strong believer in the deep impact that the decentralized universal identity will have on improving the life of every Canadian and world citizen and we are committed to working with our partners to add tremendous value one experience at a time.

1.What is the mission and vision of Stonebridge Solutions?

Stonebridge’s primary objective is to establish new mechanisms for identification, privacy and security to enable legitimacy, establish trust between two unknown parties and prevent fraud before it happens.

Our next generation technologies anticipate evolving and growing threats to both consumers and merchants and are designed to prevent these risks and empower users to positively impact their security and privacy as they transact digitally.

Our vision is to reduce the economic impact of fraud by provisioning a secure & private ‘digital last mile’ for payment.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

The world is experiencing a social and economic shift at an unprecedented rate. This is driving the growth of new and more sophisticated threat models and legacy systems and technologies that are not easily adapted to address them creating a large gap being exploited by fraudsters and driving a an urgent need for a trusted digital identity.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

One of XUMI’s founding principles it that there is economic value creation through the prevention of fraud and the elimination of risks through the establishment of a trusted digital ID that can be legitimized at the point of interaction.

We also believe that the promotion of digitization in Canada coincident with a Pan-Canadian framework for digital identity will enable greater and more efficient access to banking, government benefits, education, health care and many essential services while facilitating the security of the digital footprint and this will strengthen Canada’s economy locally and its position globally.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has a significant role to play as a leader in digital identity and trust. We have a demonstrated history of ‘locking arms together’ collaboratively to work towards the common good. When that is blended with best in class technology, banking, government, and healthcare through DIACC we can effect a change and establish a framework for success for others to model.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

We joined DIACC because we understand and share the mission. We believe in the ‘root of trust’ being established and held by a trusted authority and have designed the last mile to extend this in a secure way to consumers and merchants. When we set out 4 years ago we believed that the road to global digital transformation was long, and then suddenly it wasn’t. Our technology is bigger than we are, and it has the ability to change the game, switch things up, have impact. We believe in the power of partnership and collaboration between great teams to solve extraordinary challenges. While working quietly away on our tech we’ve witnessed an unprecedented shift to digital in the last year, and alarming growth in the risks associated with it. We want to help, lend what ever we can to eliminate those risks and feel we can further that objective through DIACC.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

Stonebridge Solutions is a small, focused tech company located in Vancouver BC. Our objective of eliminating fraud began with the simple phrase “there has to be a simpler, more secure and easier way”.

We’ve spent 4 years devoting ourselves to eliminating the threat models associated with merchant payment, mobile wallets and mobile devices while designing innovative, intuitive and frictionless experiences for users, and a platform to support it under the brand name XUMI.

1.What is the mission and vision of IMDS?

Since the 1980s, we have been hearing about paper-free businesses and the drive to move toward a more digital workplace. Today, the approach to digitally transform businesses has shifted from a technology-first perspective to a more business centric approach, with paper-free processes becoming a focal point and opportunity for many organizations.

In 1995, IMDS’ co-founders wrote the book The Advanced Document and described the following three areas: outbound documents, inbound documents and the lifecycle of documents. These three areas work together and in today’s world (whether it’s a document or a communication), this model still applies:

• Inbound documents – document capture and data extraction

• Outbound documents – customer communications management (CCM)

• Archiving – Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

With offices in Quebec, Montreal and Paris, the IMDS Research and Development centre is based in Montreal. This team works on automatic processing technologies linked to the document, and more particularly on pattern recognition and classification methods, and on facial recognition solutions using machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

A strong digital identity is needed for businesses and administrations to create an accurate and complete view of the customer, allowing on-going conversations, a strong engagement; and personalized and relevant content. Transactions are growing in volume and complexity. Customers are now in the driver’s seat, and they expect seamless, omni-channel service delivery.

But this approach needs to allow individuals to have complete control over their data identity.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does your organization address challenges associated with this transformation?

Digital identify needs to incorporate a strong identification and authentication process.

The use of biometrics made a technological leap. Facial recognition is more and more widespread when accessing your mobile terminal or your computer. However, access to the mobile terminal often gives access without additional authentication to applications or services for which a first authentication has already been performed beforehand or which relies on an identification provider.

Access  to a digital wallet requires a higher level of security, at least for certain important steps in account management (i.e., creation, request for a digital certificate, access to confidential information, etc.) IMDS addresses these challenges with a strong authentication approach that is based on multi-criteria authentication: i.e. Photo ID document verification, selfie, liveness, etc.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space?

Canada has an opportunity to be the leader in digital identity and trust services. Some of the best universities in the world, R&D companies, software vendors, consultants and experts are here in Canada.

DIACC and its members all experts in their own field are the proof that Canada will lead the way in this space.

5. Why did your organization join the DIACC?

The goal of many organizations is to provide a digital identity for citizens, supported by a digital wallet, to simplify and expand access to government services.

IMDS joined DIACC to collaborate with a group of experts, share, and learn from other Canadian businesses, in order to participate in the creation of the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework.

6. What else should we know about your organization?

IMDS is the software vendor for AD’DOC Capture Pro. AD’DOC ™

Capture Pro is a state-of-the-art solution for character recognition, document data verification and facial recognition. Easy to learn, AD’DOC ™ Capture Pro will allow you to quickly design a document dematerialization workflow.

Thanks to its experience that was forged over 20 years in this field, and with more than 750 million documents scanned per year and (more than 20 billion characters recognized per year) AD’DOC ™ Capture Pro is a complete production solution that has proven itself in many industries (Banks, Administration, etc.).