Accomplishments

To solicit feedback from the private market and validate our technical assumptions around secure identity management for state entities, Digital ID led a market sounding in summer 2022. The market sounding began with a “kickoff” event in July with Administrator Carnahan of the General Services Administration and coincided with the release of our market sounding background document that outlined the key tenets of the Digital ID framework and identified the areas where we were soliciting further input and feedback.

Over the course of the market sounding process the team held interviews with 13 identity management and technology companies, summarizing the findings from these interviews in our final market sounding report in fall 2022. The market sounding was an essential first step in the process of developing the Digital ID framework, and helped ensure that the CDT was not developing our tools and policy in a vacuum. Rather, these conversations with leading market parties confirmed our direction, elevated diverse perspectives around issues like distributed identity, and validated the proposition of the California Identity Gateway.

The California Identity Gateway (ID Gateway) is a CDT-built technology platform that facilitates the interaction between various digital entities (including state websites and identity and eligibility providers) for the purpose of securely sharing the information needed for identification and eligibility verification. Development of the Identity Gateway began in January 2022.

Once the California Identity Gateway was operational, CDT partnered with the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP) to start delivering concrete benefits to Californians, helping streamline the verification and enrollment process for discounted transit fares. By using Cal-ITP’s benefits client, which leverages the Identity Gateway, riders can verify their senior or veteran status with local transit providers like MST (Monterey Salinas Transit) and, SBMTD (Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District) and SacRT (Sacramento Regional Transit) and link their eligibility to their contactless bank card. Once linked, riders can receive their transit discount while paying in the same way that they purchase a cup of coffee. This reduced fare model is easily replicable and scalable, and Cal-ITP will continue to help more agencies across the state implement this system.

The Digital ID framework relies on secure access to multiple sources of truth that provide trustworthy information about Californians and their eligibility for state services and benefits. The CDT has operational integrations with Login.Gov, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Department of Social Services that cover many key identity attributes such as age, veterans status, Medicare enrollment, and CalFresh status. The CDT is also actively working to implement additional integrations that will provide clients with more information about Californians such as income status.

To expand the use of the Identity Gateway and demonstrate new ways of applying the Digital ID Framework, the CDT, in partnership with the Office of Data and Innovation (ODI) has begun conducting “deep dives” with other state agencies that may be interested in near-term partnerships to improve eligibility verification. In late 2023 and early 2024, the CDT engaged with both the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to explore how they may benefit from the Digital ID framework and to discuss the potential for implementing CDT technology. Continuing in the latter half of 2024, the CDT has engaged with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) to explore their use cases for identity and eligibility proofing and possibilities for implementation of the California Identity Gateway.