Minimizing identity theft by deriving securely virtual identities from official identity source documents and biometric patterns
Madrid, 2nd October 2016 - Atos, an international leader in digital services with vast expertise on end-to-end security and personal data protection, coordinates a Consortium of nine partners for the implementation of the ARIES project. ARIES stands for “reliAble euRopean Identity EcoSystem” and is a two and a half-year multi-disciplinary, Research and Innovation Action co-funded by the European Commission under the Fight Against Crime and Terrorism (FCT) theme of the H2020 framework programme.
According to CIFAS, the UK Fraud Prevention Service, identity crimes are the criminal usage of personal details to get past an organization’s security measures. There are three ways to commit those crimes. Identity theft, when a criminal uses a real person's details to impersonate them, usually to gain products or services; Identity fraud, when a criminal uses a stolen or a made up identity - often involving forged documents - to get products or services; and facility takeover fraud, when a fraudster has enough details (like passwords) to bypass security on existing accounts and take them over.
ARIES main goal is to deliver a comprehensive framework and holistic approach of technologies, processes and security features for reliable e-identity ecosystem to improve identity, trust and security, and to better support the law enforcement in addressing the new cybersecurity threats while achieving positive, far-reaching socio-economic impacts. ARIES multi-disciplinary team will address all key legal, ethical, socio-economic, technological and organisational aspects of identity-related crimes in both virtual (i.e. misuse of information, cyber-mobbing) and physical places (i.e. people trafficking, organized crime). By strengthening the link between trustworthy physical ID documents, online identities and biometric identity, ARIES will ensure highest levels of quality in secure credentials for extremely secure and privacy-respecting physical and virtual identity management. Highest data protection standards will be followed to provide digital privacy-preserving features. The objective is the widespread and user-friendly use and adoption of elements ensuring first-class identity assurance, including biometric verification, in order to tangibly reduce levels of wrong identity and associated crimes. For that, ARIES will propose harmonized credential issuance and authentication processes and at the same time mechanisms to allow better law enforcement on identity management, efficient control and threats detection.
Alicia García, Director of Research & Innovation at Atos, said: "ARIES will support more effective combating of identity theft and identity-related crimes, through better prevention and detection of this type of crime. It will also contribute to the Digital Single Market economy and Digital Agenda for Europe by increasing trust and confidence in electronically delivered services”.
The results of ARIES will be addressed to three complementary target markets. On the one hand, to all citizens owning smart devices who wish to use their physical and official identities conveniently and securely. On the other, service providers that suffer economical losses derived from identity crimes can leverage ARIES results to minimize the amount or limit the impact of identity fraud incidents. Last, ARIES virtual identities and its verification and protection technologies can be deployed in physical access control scenarios, minimizing the need for complex biometric readers. ARIES will demonstrate its outcomes and the levels of identity prevention reduction achieved in two use case demonstrators, secure eCommerce and identity virtualization for secure travel, covering a comprehensive vision of virtual id ecosystem and its practical application.
ARIES has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 700085. The project started on September 1st 2016, coordinated by Atos and with partners Universidad de Murcia (Spain), Gemalto SRO (Czech Republic), Morpho (France), Saher UK LTD (United Kingdom), Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire (United Kingdom), Ertzaintza (Spain), Belgian Federal Police (Belgium) and Sonae. (Portugal) An information pack about the project is available this website
CONTACT
Nicolás Notario. Project Coordinator. Atos. Tel (+34) 91 456 98 95 – nicolas.notario@atos.net
Twitter: @AriesH2020
