Mobile World Congress revealed many ways in which mobile technology is evolving to deliver a new range of digital services. Inside the event’s GSMA Innovation City, we were given a glimpse of how improvements to network speed, coverage and power are helping to connect everything and anything. Essential to the success of all new devices and services will be the degree to which people can use them securely and conveniently.
The greater emphasis on digital identity at this year’s event is a testament to how the wider digital community is rising to meet the challenge of creating an identity solution that is interoperable, easy to use and secure. The mobile industry’s own solution, Mobile Connect, was able to demonstrate its market readiness through a wide range of live demonstrations in collaboration with a number of leading global brands.
One of the key discussions about Mobile Connect at this year’s event was the degree to which it could adapt to emerging technologies and changing business requirements. Partnering with security giant Safran, Mobile Connect was able to show how it could be used in conjunction with biometrics to check-in to a flight with an Indian airline. The solution also showcased its authorisation credentials in NSTIC‘s and InterBev’s connected vending machine, which used the solution to authorise purchases by verifying the user’s age. Building on its reputation as a potentially strong partner in finance, Mobile Connect joined forces with Visa to demonstrate how it could also be used to remotely authorise payments.
Three of the most renowned brands in the music industry, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music Group (and their playlist brand, Topsify), also united through Kuack Media Group to provide content for a demo of a new mobile-based music streaming app, Mobile Connect Music. Specifically designed to leverage the security and reliability of mobile networks, the app allowed users to access its 10 million tracks after logging in via Mobile Connect.
As was touted last year, Mobile Connect could be a key enabler for new public sector services. We were given more evidence of this in British Government’s Gov.uk/Digidentity demonstration which allowed citizens to use Digidentity (which uses the Mobile Connect technology) to verify their identity in order to check their pension account details.
Mobile Connect’s ability to enable public and private sector services was debated in a series of industry seminars featuring leading subject matter experts from the mobile industry and adjacent sectors. Speaking on the issues of the incoming identity regulation, emerging technologies and combatting fraud, industry leaders sought to agree a common approach to digital identity. Here, one of the key challenges for merchants was made clear; the transition to the digital world is drastically reducing the proportion of transactions in which buyer and seller physically meet, and thus altering the meaning of trust.
As the GSMA’s Head of Applications and Services David Pollington explained, Mobile Connect’s global architecture seeks ultimately to empower and return control its users. Indeed – as Pollington concluded – in the future, it could be that the user decides precisely how it is that they are authenticated, and how their data is shared. Now available to over 3 billion people in 29 countries and supported by 51 of the world’s leading operators, Mobile Connect can be leveraged to provide high-grade security and an enhanced customer experience across a multitude of verticals and use cases.