E-Authentication looking for new service providers

The General Services Administration is looking for ways to give the federal E-Authentication e-government project a boost by bringing in more credential providers.In a issued yesterday, GSA is asking commercial and public-sector providers to provide information on how they could support public access to online government services. GSA said there currently are six public and private-sector providers issuing at least two of the four levels of identity credentials.Additionally, 14 agencies have at least one application using the E-Authentication federation. GSA said it expects the number of online services using credentials to increase to more than 450 by fiscal 2011.GSA had planned on issuing the RFI in GSA said in the RFI that it wants information on how entities would provide Level 1 and Level 2 credentials, which include a user identification and personal identification number that provide little or no confidence of the person’s identity and some confidence of the user’s identity, which would include a username and password.The functional requirements GSA said it is looking for includes:Responses to the RFI are due Oct. 2.