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. We would have roadways but no reliable
buildings. The inhabited world
would be one big squatters' settlement of tarpaper shacks right next to
busy roadways, a place where there really are none of the bounded,
protected,
reliable
spaces that we call "indoors".
Isn't that what we have in our online world? We meet, keep our
files, educate our children and let them play
in a space called 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 WTSA 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, such
certification by duly constituted public authority, where all
certifications cite individual identity, is more important than
ever.
