The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded $143,478 to Danube Tech GmbH, based in Vienna, Austria, to develop blockchain security technology. The award was made under S&T’s Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) Other Transaction Solicitation Preventing Forgery & Counterfeiting of Certificates and Licenses. seeking blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions to fulfill a common need across DHS missions.

DHS operational components—such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—issue, validate and verify eligibility requirements; licenses and certifications for travel, citizenship, and immigration status; employment eligibility; and supply chain security. Current issuance processes are often paper-based, do not facilitate data exchange, and use among systems and could be susceptible to loss, destruction, forgery and counterfeiting. S&T is exploring the application of blockchain and DLT to issue credentials digitally to enhance security, ensure interoperability, and prevent forgery and counterfeiting.

Danube Tech GmbH received a Phase I award for its Universal Issuer and Verifier project and will integrate interoperability support for multiple credential data formats, blockchains and standardized and open application programming interfaces into their existing decentralized identifier (DID) registrar and DID resolver products for credential issuance and identity verification.

“Danube Tech is building core interoperability infrastructure for issuers and verifiers,” said Anil John, SVIP Technical Director. “Interoperability between blockchains is enabled by using emerging World Wide Web Consortium standards to globally resolve and find information where it exists on a particular blockchain.”

SVIP is one of S&T’s programs and tools to fund innovation and work with private sector partners to advance homeland security solutions. Companies participating in SVIP are eligible for up to $800,000 of non-dilutive funding over four phases to develop and adapt commercial technologies for homeland security use cases.

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