Ottawa, ON (March 10, 2020) – eID-Me, a secure digital identity smartphone app, launched yesterday on iOS and Android for Ontario residents. eID-Me is developed by the Ottawa-based company, Bluink, and backed by a $1.2M award from a 2017 Ontario Centres of Excellence program funded by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
eID-Me digitizes and securely stores government-issued identity and self-managed identity information on the user’s smartphone.
Features and partnerships are now being developed to make online identity verification quicker, easier, and more secure by eliminating passwords and strengthening privacy protection.
“Our goal is to improve access to services that require verified identity, including government, financial, health care, legal, and more,” says Steve Borza, CEO of Bluink. “Once integrations are in place, eID-Me could prevent identity fraud in financial services, which became more likely due to millions of leaked social insurance numbers and other information from the Desjardins and Capital One data breaches last year.”
eID-Me could also enable age verification to online cannabis stores, which are currently unable to prevent underage access according to Health Canada.
Existing online identity verification services are long, difficult, and potentially insecure. Some services ask difficult questions about outdated credit history. Some derive a user’s identity from vulnerable password-based logins. Many take weeks to process verifications.
eID-Me solves these problems with quick and easy identity verification in minutes from the user’s home. Users take a selfie, scan their ID documents, and submit for identity proofing while at their home address.
The user’s identity information is encrypted and sent to eID-Me’s secure registration server for verification. Once verified, an eID-Me digital identity is created on the user’s smartphone using a digital certificate, which is bound to an anonymous identifier and the user’s identity information. The user then has a secure, portable digital wallet which can be used in online and offline identity transactions. No identity information is retained on Bluink’s eID-Me servers.
eID-Me’s decentralized identity model reduces the risk of massive data breaches since there is no centralized store of identity information.
eID-Me’s digital wallet is protected on the smartphone with strong encryption, leveraging the smartphone’s hardware security mechanisms, and is bound to the user’s unlock method (e.g., passcode, fingerprint scan, face verification). If a smartphone is lost, the “Find my iPhone” and “Find my Android Device” apps can be used to find the smartphone or remotely wipe the smartphone’s data.
As eID-Me partnerships develop, users will be able to interact with online services with unmatched convenience and security. eID-Me partnerships with organizations will enable remote identity proofing and improve access to their services using eID-Me’s password-free login capabilities.
To register for eID-Me, you will need a valid Canadian passport and Ontario Driver’s Licence or Photo Card.
For full registration requirements and download links, visit eid-me.com/download.
Watch the eID-Me Launch Teaser video to see eID-Me in action: https://youtu.be/VEHy63U_0L8.
About Bluink
Bluink is a digital identity company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada that specializes in identity and access management and customer identity verification, using the smartphone as a strong authenticator and secure identity store. Bluink’s mission is to empower people and businesses by making secure access simple using strong digital identities. For more information, visit www.bluink.ca.
Press Contact
Alex Longval
Marketing and Community Director
alongval@bluink.ca
+1 613 695 9585