On May 1, 1999, I began my career in the biometrics and identity industry at an unknown, fledgling company called Visionics that was promoting facial recognition in a shrink-wrapped box to allow people to log onto their PCs safely.

If you were in San Francisco last week, you would have wondered where the RSA Conference actually was. Personally, I spent a total of 90 minutes in the BioCatch booth over the course of the three days, and much more time outside Moscone Center than on the show floor. That being said, when I was at the trade show proper, there was a continuous crowd, lots of good buzz and conversation, and a palpable energy around when next generation information security will arrive.

Last week marked a watershed Election Day in America, but for those of you expecting a political analysis of what transpired, you will be sorely disappointed; for what I want to talk about is identity. Identity from an American point of view. Identity in the context of a crisis that we are facing in this country, which rears its ugly head in so many different ways.

The big booths were glitzy and crowded. One was even set up with a spaceship model overhead. Many had seating arranged for presentations and ongoing demonstrations. Coffee, candy, popcorn, all sorts of giveaways.

I attended the K(NO)W Identity Conference last week, which has emerged in the last year as the premier event for the identity industry.

Recently, there’s been an uptick in the adoption of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, a set of guidelines aimed at helping organizations improve their overall cybersecurity process. In December 2017, NIST released the second draft of its Framework. Among the updates were two critical additions to the Identity Management, Authentication and Access Control guidance.