Government seeks to improve consumer confidence with online privacy strategy

Thursday, May 24, 2012

The Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce recently rolled out a new strategy designed to boost consumer confidence when making transactions online.

The new strategy, called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, seeks to stimulate economic growth by ensuring consumers that whatever information they provide when purchasing goods or services on the internet will be protected, as will their identities.

According to the White House, the government will work with the private sector to establish an "Identity Ecosystem," which will provide consumers with safe and secure identity credentials that can be used to log onto any website.

"By making online transactions more trustworthy and better protecting privacy, we will prevent costly crime, we will give businesses and consumers new confidence and we will foster growth and untold innovation. That’s why this initiative is so important for our economy," said President Obama.

According to a recent study by the Identity Theft Resource Center, identity theft and data breaches increased in 2010 by 33 percent compared to 2009. In total, 662 reported data breaches occurred in the United States last year.