Trusted Key
Driving Innovation to Secure Digital Identities

To say that access to offline experiences are all moving online is to understand the shifting tide of the global business infrastructure. Today, any task, from calling a cab to paying utility bills, can be accomplished through a smartphone app. With everything being interconnected over the internet, our existence in the cyberspace pivots around the usernames and passwords used to authenticate our every activity and transaction. What of identity security then? The password-based paradigm is crumbling in the face of relentless hacks and breaches. Using the same password across different sites creates a wide-open vulnerability for hackers to exploit and take-over user accounts. And with a growing number of services requiring the user to provide a government-issued ID such as a driver’s license, a cyber-attack further increases the risk of information leakage and identity theft.”

What is the answer to these identity security challenges? Trusted Key represents a fundamentally different approach to identity that puts the user at the center, allowing them to login to systems and share information with services in a secure way. “We leverage mobile phones, strong cryptography, and blockchain technology to provide a secure, easy-to-use, and flexible identity management solution,” states Prakash Sundaresan, founder and CEO of Trusted Key.

The Trusted Key mobile app, available as a free download on both Apple and Android app stores, acts as a “Digital Identity Wallet.” The app uses biometrics to secure cryptographic keys that allow the user to login to systems without passwords. It also allows users to bring online their government-issued IDs (from over 190 countries) and turn them into cryptographic tokens registered on a blockchain. Users can use these tokens to securely establish their identity with any online service. For example, users can securely and easily provide the KYC (Know-Your-Customer) information required to open bank accounts right from their mobile phones.

Trusted Key provides SDKs that enable enterprises and developers to embed these capabilities into their apps with little to no coding. For example, developers can seamlessly integrate secure login without passwords into their app or service using standards-based APIs.

Banks can also provide more advanced capabilities such as enabling users to securely authorize their credit card transactions to prevent card-not-present fraud. Trusted Key enables customers to deploy its services in their own environment and comply with their regulatory requirements.

We leverage mobile phones, strong cryptography, and blockchain technology to provide a secure, easy-to-use, and flexible identity management solution

Blockchain technology is a key enabler of the Trusted Key system, enabling multiple parties to participate in an identity ecosystem without one having to trust the private database of another. Blockchain technology also enables users to manage their own keys in cases when they lose their device or purchase a new one, without depending on (and trusting) anyone, including the Trusted Key company. “This user-centric approach to identity is a key differentiator for us, something we have baked deeply into our product architecture,” adds Amit Mital, chairman of Trusted Key. As a direct result of this approach, the cost of key management support is dramatically lower than that of other conventional approaches.

Trusted Key’s immediate focus is to work with customers and partners to drive adoption. “There is tremendous potential to simplify and enhance security for users and bring real value to businesses, and we are focused on that,” Sundaresan adds. In the future, the company sees applications in securing IOT devices and their interaction with other devices and people. The company’s long-term vision is a world of billions of people and tens of billions of devices, all secured using the foundational capabilities that Trusted Key brings to the market.