India’s Operators Throw Weight Behind Mobile Industry’s Digital Identity Solution

With the mobile industry accounting for 6.5 % of the country’s GDP, it forms a crucial part of India’s economy and acts a key driver of the country’s Digital India campaign. These are amongst the reasons why the industry’s annual regional engagement conferences, the Mobile 360 Series, now includes India; with the inaugural event held last week in Gurgaon.

The event outlined how Mobile Network Operators plan to support India’s digital strategy, with one of the key emphases being the need for an interoperable digital identity solution. Here, Operators highlighted the capability of Mobile Connect following its launch in India earlier this year.

The solution was showcased by six of the nation’s leading Operators (Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Idea, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Telenor and Vodafone), all of whom are committed to the Mobile Connect. The demonstrations gave attendees the opportunity to log-in to various online services, simply by entering their mobile number and acting on a prompt sent through to their handset.

It was not just operators who were keen to showcase Mobile Connect either; security giant, Safran, and Aadhar, otherwise known as the Unique Government Identification Authority of India, also exhibited a proof of concept of how it could be used to authenticate in conjunction with biometrics.

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As India shifts towards a digital economy, the country’s services are becoming increasingly dependent on identity solutions which are secure, convenient and respect user’s privacy. As such, operators argue they are well-placed to deliver such a solution given their extensive experience of security and trusted reputation.

The GSMA’s Director General, Mats Granryd, underscored this point, and referred to the solution’s growing user base and availability to 800 million customers in India. Prakash Sayini, Director, Deloitte India, who featured in the Mobile for Development Summit, ‘Digital Identity and Powering a Digital India’, also backed the solution, suggesting it had the potential to enable digital services for many of the nation’s rural inhabitants.

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The event also featured the launch of Mobile Connect’s new business website, which acts as gateway for service providers, vendors and developers who are seeking to find out more or make use of the solution.

As India confronts the twinned factors of a growing digital economy and the increasing importance of identity, the wider technology community are fundamentally rethinking alternatives to the traditional username/password system – with Mobile Connect, they may have found it.

 

For more information on Mobile Connect, please visit gmsa.com/mobileconnect