Trust Originates with Reliable Certification

What would the world be like without birth certificates, professional licenses, building codes, occupancy permits, and all the other certifications provided by city hall?

Beyond our closest circles of acquaintances there would be no reliable basis for authenticity. With roadways but no reliable buildings, the inhabited world would be a squatters' settlement of tarpaper shacks situated by busy roadways. It would be a place without the bounded, protected, reliable spaces that we call "indoors".

Isn't that our online world? We meet, keep our files, do business, educate our children and let them play on the Information Highway.

What is a highway but an outdoor public transport facility? We don't need to know the identities of the inhabitants of the vehicles around us on the highway, but we certainly need to know the identities of those who mingle with our children, join us in meeting rooms, and open our file cabinets. And we need to know that the buildings where those things take place are safe.

The Individual Membership Section of The Authenticity Alliance is committed to bringing the benefits of reliable certification to the online world.

For centuries, all reliable certification has been based upon duly constituted public authority. For centuries, certification of practitioners of professions has begun with the identity of those individual professionals.

In today's online world, where anyone can purport to be anyone, certification by duly constituted public authority, where all certifications cite individual identity, is more important than ever.