Modeling the Cost Structure of Identity Proofing

Identity Proofing - providing a digital identifier bound to a real-world entity - is effective against identity theft, which is a serious problem for cyber security. In-person interaction with an applicant is the basis of identity proofing, but that is only effective when all applicants are located near a registration authority (RA) which is responsible for verifying some or all of the applicant´s identity information. Since that requirement can be hard to fulfill, especially in distributed organizations, the RA has two conventional types: local and remote. A quantitative evaluation model of system operation costs for RAs would allow an organization to determine the most appropriate RA type or combination of types for the topology of their situation. In this paper, we propose a cost structure model for various different cost factors, such as the access cost to an authoritative source, and the number of RA operators. Our model provides two major contributions: a tool for optimizing the cost-performance of a system that is determined by the choice of RA type and a quantitative method for evaluating and comparing existing systems.