A third party will emerge that provides identity management services on the Internet, said Bregman. An identity clearinghouse would hold enough information to verify identity but would not need other personal information, such as health records, according to Bregman.

Asked afterward if Symantec was considering becoming that identity clearinghouse, via a software as a service (SaaS) paradigm, Bregman acknowledged it is under consideration.

"I think it's an area we're looking at," he said. Symantec is already in the SaaS space with its Norton 360 (http://www.symantec.com/about/news/resources/press_kits/detail.jsp?pkid=genesis) security service for consumers, he added.

Most technologies available today pertain to enterprise identity management, Bregman said. But the issue is establishing and maintaining an identity on the Internet, he said.

"The key is, how do you make it easy enough to establish that, but hard enough not to make it worth your while to establish a fake ID," he said.