WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee approved Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s Improving Digital Identity Act – bipartisan legislation introduced with Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) that protects Arizonans from identity theft, prevents cybercriminals from stealing Arizonans’ benefits, and safeguards Arizonans’ privacy.
“With cybercrime on the rise, we’re protecting Arizonans’ privacy and saving taxpayer dollars by improving digital verification to combat identity theft and fraud – while also making online services easier to access and use,” said Sinema.
Sinema’s bipartisan Improving Digital Identity Act creates a public-private task force on digital identity that will improve cybersecurity and Arizonans’ ability to conveniently access critical services online. The task force will produce technical protocols to facilitate secure, interoperable, and privacy-enhancing digital identity tools, and lay the groundwork for states and tribes to develop voluntary digital driver’s licenses and other innovative solutions. The bill also requires federal agencies to enhance the security, accessibility, and privacy of their identity verification systems.
The bipartisan legislation improves digital identity verification and increases accessibility, privacy protections, the ability of government and the private sector to collaborate on security challenges, and oversight of these initiatives. As more services moved online during COVID-19, historic numbers of Arizonans fell victim to identity theft and criminals stole billions of taxpayer dollars from the government due to antiquated approaches. With Americans’ Social Security numbers and other personal information now widely available on the dark web, giving Arizonans the option to adopt innovative digital identity tools is critical to combatting identity theft, reducing fraud in benefits programs, and increasing confidence in online transactions.
