The global digital identity landscape is rapidly developing. Digital Identity specialists Liminal recently predicted that reusable digital identity services will grow to $266.5 billion globally by 2027. Continuing to grow the capabilities we can provide for our services, our partners and you as a user is critical to expand digital identity internationally as it becomes more important in an increasingly digital world.

In the spirit of industry progress, we are thrilled to share that, Avast, a global leader in digital security and privacy, announced the acquisition of SecureKey. Our expertise combined with the maturity and scalability of our services will allow our Canadian success story to expand globally and provide people around the world with safe and accessible means of authenticating their identities online while cementing SecureKey as a key provider of digital identity solutions.

We will maintain our commitment to helping Interac advance the Canadian digital identity landscape with no immediate changes to our organizational structure or service data residency, all in close collaboration with the team at Interac. For SecureKey globally, uniting with Avast enables us to apply our technology for greater innovation together as we look to build a more trustworthy future for all internet users.

Who is Avast?

Avast is a leading digital security provider headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. With over 435 million users online, Avast offers products that protect people from cyberthreats and secure their privacy. Avast’s global threat detection network uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect and stop threats in real time.

Avast has been building a privacy and identity portfolio for a number of years. They have had their eye on SecureKey’s successful operations for some time as they recognized the potential for our services to support their product vision and delivery.

Like us at SecureKey, Avast believes in a consumer-centric approach to digital identity that combines federated and self-sovereign distributed identity models with strong governance frameworks to put the user first.

Avast’s mission for a reusable and global digital identity system that will underpin a new trust layer for the internet perfectly aligns with our vision for a robust identity ecosystem. Our solutions and platform are complementary to Avast’s core services and its vision for identity and bringing these solutions to millions of people worldwide. Together, we will empower people online by providing control over the sharing of their holistic digital identity.

What does this mean for SecureKey?

This announcement comes at an exciting time as the past two years have witnessed an astounding acceleration of change in business and technology across the globe. The resiliency and adaptation of businesses have been a major catalyst for innovation. The widespread adoption of remote work and meteoric rise of eCommerce will continue long after the pandemic subsides. While this innovation fuelled business continuity throughout a time of great uncertainty, it also brought the possibility of a global digital ID ecosystem into vivid focus. Against the background of this dynamic and exciting landscape, we are thrilled to show the world what Canadian innovation can achieve.

We will continue to work alongside Interac in accordance with the two organizations’ strategic transaction announced in October 2021. This includes Interac’s acquisition of our Canadian business contracts, the exclusive license to provide our digital ID services in Canada (including those currently known as Verified.Me and Government Sign-In by Verified.Me), and our development and operational support to Interac under a long-term managed operations and services agreement.

The new agreement with Avast has exciting global implications for SecureKey. It will allow us to apply SecureKey’s success story in Canada to a multitude of geographies worldwide. We view this as one big step towards empowering people everywhere to take control of their digital identities.

Moving forward, our dream of building a global digital ID ecosystem is quickly becoming possible. We look forward to forging new and fruitful relationships with governments and businesses internationally to solidify this reality.

The global digital ID market is growing, and SecureKey is growing with it. Stay tuned to see how made-in-Canada tech makes a difference.