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The move will bolster Avast’s digital authentication and identity management portfolio.

Avast announced this week that they will acquire SecureKey Technologies, a global provider of digital identity and authentication solutions headquartered in Canada. SecureKey’s privacy-enhancing services are focused on simplifying access to online services while giving control back to consumers by ensuring the information they share with others is only ever with their explicit consent. 

Identity and Authentication and reusable digital identity services are expected to grow to $266bn by 2027 with a CAGR of 68.9%, according to Liminal (formerly OWI), the digital identity specialists, with the private sector to capture the majority of this growth. SecureKey’s mission has been to simplify consumer access to secure online services and applications, such as government, healthcare, and financial account opening, utilizing secure digital versions of the credentials they already have and trust. 

Taking Avast’s offering “to the next level”

“We envisage a global and reusable digital identity framework which will underpin a new trust layer for the internet,” said Ondrej Vlcek, the CEO of Avast, which merged with NortonLifeLock last year. “It’s clear that digital identity is the critical enabler for many digital services and SecureKey’s success reflects the growing demand for this from consumers. SecureKey is highly complementary to Avast’s prior work in Identity and together we will take our offer to the next level, accelerating innovation and working to establish a user-focused, global approach that aligns user, business, and government propositions.”

Services developed by SecureKey include those currently known as Verified.Me, a first-of-its-kind, distributed digital identity verification network, and Government Sign-In by Verified.Me for convenient login to hundreds of government online services and applications. Both services are provided by Interac Corp. under an exclusive Canadian licensing arrangement. SecureKey’s digital identity solutions enable over 200 million secure digital ID transactions per year globally. SecureKey’s continued investments will support emerging digital identity standards and solutions, including DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) and Verifiable Credentials, to further empower digital trust networks and ecosystems enabling true user centric control.

“SecureKey’s vision has been to revolutionize the way consumers and organizations approach identity and the sharing of personal information in the digital age. By working closely with governments, financial institutions and businesses, we have an established track record of trusted and mature identity networks that provide consumers with the secure digital capabilities they deserve,” said Greg Wolfond, CEO, SecureKey.

The deal is expected to close in early April 2022 with the general availability of SecureKey’s products following in Q2.