NEW YORK  – A new report by Connecting for Health, a public-private collaborative operated by the Markle Foundation, recommends widespread adoption of several common practices for validating identities of online consumers, which in turn would help stimulate the growth of personal health records.

“Your health information is likely scattered across several providers and organizations,” said Clay Shirky, chairman of the Connecting for Health Work Group on Consumer Authentication Policies for Networked Health Information.

“To access your information in an electronic environment, all those organizations must be satisfied that you really are who you say you are.”

The report recommends that in-person proofing – checking government-issued identification documents in a face-to-face setting – continue to be a common approach, especially for organizations that lack an established relationship with the consumer. But it also encourages greater use of “knowledge-based authentication,” a set of methods that confirm a person’s identity through an electronic dialogue about facts that only the proper user should know.