Having worked alongside mobile network operators for many years, it is increasingly clear that they will play an increasingly vital role in the identity market. For decades, they’ve been the number one provider of secure and trusted identities to both business and consumers. Simply, operators hold the trust that’s needed when transitioning from analogue to digital worlds. Key to this transition are operator attributes. Think about it as when you first got a mobile number – it was the primary way in which you could digitally represent yourself and allow others to connect with you in such a way. Attributes originally connected us via talk and text, but have since evolved to into massive amounts of information such as purchase history, internet usage and location data. With the ever-growing anticipation for AI and deep learning, data of this sort will become increasingly essential to the fundamental mechanics of daily life. As attributes and data multiply, we will increasingly find operators becoming natural partners for any company operating in the digital domain.
Alongside the development –and increasing importance– of attributes will be the transition between subscription-centric and user-centric models. Currently, contracts are made between an operator and a subscriber, but a subscriber does not necessarily mean an individual; it can be me, a company, a couple, a family and so on. For example, in my early years, my digital footprint according to my network operator was the same as that of my parents, simply because shared the same subscription. Yet, the vast multiplication of operator data makes it far easier to determine who the user actually is, a fact that makes operators far more valuable to service providers.
This is hugely important when considering identity in relation to the Internet of Things (IoT), in which we increasingly rely on digital more services, more devices and ever-vaster quantities of data. In the IoT, distinguishing between different devices and services is crucial, and in some cases, will make the difference in maintaining critical services. Without trust, the IoT is not possible.
Clayster exists to foster such trust. We believe in the individual’s right to be in control of who has the right to access personal data. We invest our time and energy to help driving the adaptation of identity in the digital realm because that’s key to an owner-centric model for the IoT and the Internet as a whole. To make this happen we help operators transform their IoT business model from connectivity to access. Our technology streamlines this process and enables the development of a healthy ecosystem between device manufacture, service provider and of course the device owners. In the coming years, we can expect user-centric identity to fuel both the digital economy and its culture – at Clayster, we are proud to play a part in developing an IoT which is trusted, secure and places people at its heart.
Rikard Strid will be speaking at the upcoming MWC19 Barcelona Seminar ‘The Future of Digital Identity: From Revolutionary Technologies to Social Acceptance’