Let's Talk About Digital Identity

In episode 43, Oscar and Erdoo explore the importance of mobile technology to digital identity, and what that means for inclusion in schemes that rely on identification of individuals. From her background in policy and advocacy at GSMA, Erdoo gives specific examples of mobile playing a role in the development of identity – identity enrolment in Nigeria, birth registration in Pakistan, health records in Kenya, and cash value assistance in Zambia. She also explores the challenges preventing mobile from playing a role in the development of digital identity ecosystems.

"There are a range of opportunities for mobile technology and mobile operators to play a pivotal role in the development of digital identity ecosystems."

Erdoo joined GSMA in 2017. She is a Policy and Advocacy Manager across the Digital Identity (DI) and Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) teams. As part of the advocacy and policy team, she is working to create an enabling policy environment for mobile operators to ensure that mobile can be used to support identification of underserved populations and as a platform to deliver humanitarian assistance. Erdoo is thus working with mobile operators, development partners and humanitarian organisations to uncover and resolve policy and regulatory barriers they face in providing mobile services to users.

She also leads GSMA’s research on mandatory SIM registration, exploring its relation to other key indicators in order to establish key trends that inform the work of the DI and M4H advocacy and policy streams.

Erdoo delivers the ‘Digital identity for the underserved and the role of mobile’ Capacity Building course to regulators and policymakers and represents GSMA at a broad range of events.

Find Erdoo on LinkedIn.

Find out more about GSMA's Mobile for Development team at www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment.

Find the reports that Erdoo refers to at the end of the episode at www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/resources/access-mobile-services-proof-identity-global-policy-trends-dependencies-risks/, www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/resources/digital-identity-accelerating-financial-inclusion-during-a-crisis/ and www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/resources/commercially-sustainable-roles-for-mobile-operators-in-digital-id-ecosystems/.

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In episode 42, we explore Mei's work at NIST evaluating face recognition biometrics with the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT), how accurate facial recognition actually is, and the effects of different variables on the FRVT – face masks (motivated by the pandemic), face morphing as a current FR vulnerability for identity credentials, demographic differentials, and twins – “the forgotten demographic”.

"[Face recognition] technology really has come a long way, especially when you only have half the face available to do recognition with. But with that said though, there still remains certain limitations to the technology – such as being able to differentiate between identical twins, demographic differentials and extremely poor-quality photos."

Mei Ngan is a scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Her research focus includes evaluation of face recognition and tattoo recognition technologies. Mei has authored and co-authored a number of technical publications, including the accuracy of face recognition with face masks, evaluation of face morphing detection algorithms, demographic effects in face recognition, performance of facial age and gender estimation algorithms, and publication of a seminal open tattoo database for developing tattoo recognition research, which she received the Special Contribution Award for at the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA).

Mei was awarded the Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award in 2020 and was a recipient of the 2020 Women in Biometrics Award, a globally recognised award honouring innovative women in the biometrics field.

Find out more about Mei's work at nist.gov/programs-projects/face-recognition-vendor-test-frvt

Find the FRVT leaderboards at pages.nist.gov/frvt/html/frvt11.html (1:1) and pages.nist.gov/frvt/html/frvt1N.html (1:N).

View Women in Identity's webinar with Mei exploring demographic effects in facial recognition here: https://youtu.be/Lni4Pe8dYuk

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In episode 41, Oscar and Schehrezade explore Tricerion's immunity passport – ImmucheX. They discuss the challenges that immunity passports present – including privacy, trust and regulatory compliance - and how Tricerion is responding to those challenges.

"Fundamentally it's about trust, it's about accuracy. It's complicated but there is a way forward."

Schehrezade Davidson is the CEO of Tricerion Limited, a company that owns novel patented mutual authentication software using image passwords. Find Schehrezade on LinkedIn.

This is Schehrezade's second LTADI podcast appearance. Listen to her previous episode (26), describing Tricerion's neurographic passwords solution, here - www.ubisecure.com/podcast/neurographic-passwords-tricerion-schehrezade-davidson/

Find out more about Tricerion's ImmucheX solution at www.tricerion.com/immuchex.

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In episode 40, Roland fills us in on how Verimi works and its privacy-by-design cornerstones, including data minimisation. Oscar and Roland also discuss the digital identity landscape in Germany and how it's been affected by the pandemic, plus the future of identity in Germany and what needs to happen next.

"Customer experience is king at digital identity. And really, technology, security, privacy, whatever it is - it's important, but in a sense it’s a commodity."

Roland Adrian has been Managing Director and Spokesman of the Management Board at Verimi since January 2019. Previously, he was Managing Director and Spokesman of the Executive Board at Lufthansa Miles & More GmbH for four years. The business degree holder started his career in 1996 at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in Munich. After holding leading positions in the KarstadtQuelle Group, he built up the HappyDigits bonus programme from 2002 as a joint venture between Arcandor AG and of Deutsche Telekom AG. In 2009, he moved to PAYBACK in Munich and from 2010 focused on the launch of the programme in India. As Vice President, he led PAYBACK's expansion into various markets worldwide.

Find Roland on LinkedIn or email him at [email protected].

Verimi is the European cross industry identity and trusted platform. Verimi combines a convenient central login (Single Sign On), the highest data security and protection standards in line with European law and the self-determination of users regarding the use of their personal data. Verimi was founded in spring of 2017. The identity and trusted platform is supported by a network of thirteen international corporations. The shareholder network includes Allianz, Axel Springer, Bundesdruckerei, Core, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bank and Postbank, Deutsche Telekom, Giesecke+Devrient, Here Technologies, Lufthansa, Samsung and Volkswagen.

Verimi is a Ubisecure partner. Read more about the partnership in the press release: https://www.ubisecure.com/news-events/verimi-partnership/

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In episode 39 of LTADI, Oscar talks to Ben about UBO Service and the challenges it solves around verifying Ultimate Beneficiary Owners, how UBO Service is leveraging Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) for KYC and enhanced CDD, and the Global LEI Foundation's validation agent (VA) framework.

"It was very obvious to us that adding the LEI to that identification piece was very powerful because you're really identifying and verifying the entity to a very high standard, by using data that we get from official government registries – adding that to an LEI just makes complete perfect sense to us."

Serial entrepreneur Ben Cronin founded GBR (Global Business Register) in 2008. GBR morphed into Kyckr over the following years and Kyckr listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange in 2016, providing commercially proven products for the authentication of businesses globally. His roles at Kyckr included Managing Director and Chief Data Officer. Ben is a supporter of Max Schrem’s organisation, NOYB - European Centre for Digital Rights; the fight for data privacy is important for all citizens. Ben played professional rugby with Munster and Ireland in the 90’s. His other interests include tennis, whisky, science and family!

Find Ben on LinkedIn and on Twitter @Ben_Cronin.

Ben Cronin is currently Managing Director at UBO Service. UBO Service offers an innovative new solution for obliged entities to capture accurate Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) declarations in real-time.

Find out more about UBO Service at www.uboservice.com.

UBO Service is in partnership with Ubisecure's LEI service, RapidLEI. Read more about the partnership in the press release: www.ubisecure.com/news-events/rapidlei-ubo-service-partnership-kyc/

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In episode 38, Lisa and Oscar discuss the Me2B Alliance and how it aims to make technology better for humans, plus the businesses (B-s) which are shining a light on privacy issues and giving the Me-s more control.

"We used to call ourselves something like the 'organic food label'. But that's actually not right. We're more like independent automobile crash testing."

Lisa LeVasseur is Executive Director at Me2B Alliance, a non-profit organisation that is setting the standard for respectful technology. An MBA technologist with a background in Computer Science and Philosophy, Lisa began strategic work in cellular telecom industry standards in the late ‘90s while at Motorola. Since then, she has participated in 3GPP, 3GPP2, MEIF, WAP Forum, IETF, W3C, IEEE and Kantara Initiative.

Find out more about Me2B Alliance at me2ba.org. Join as a 'Me' or a 'B' at me2ba.org/membership.

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In episode 37, René Seifert talks about the current status of identity in the UK; the government's recent call for evidence and DIU (digital identity unit); the resultant six guiding principles – including privacy and inclusivity; the potential of self-sovereign identity to solve some of these issues; TrueProfile.io and the importance of verified credentials in an HR context; plus the ethical, political and technical challenges of ‘immunity passports’.

"I think it's interesting if we overlay this utopia of a self-sovereign identity that sounds maybe like science fiction today, and where these UK digital initiatives are geared, and my best guess is we can and will land somewhere in the middle."

René Seifert is a serial entrepreneur and co-head of TrueProfile.io, a credential verification solution provider. Powered by the DataFlow Group, TrueProfile.io provides these services in a modern environment via the adoption of Ethereum blockchain. Prior to this, René was the co-founder and co-CEO of Venturate AG, a crowdfunding platform allowing regular people to invest side-by- side with experienced business angels.

In addition, he has been involved in founding several internet, tech and media companies, among the Holtzbrinck eLab. René, half German and half Croatian, began his career hosting radio shows and running an advertising agency parallel to his studies. He was head of marketing and presenter at the radio station Bayern 3. During the "new economy" he headed the entertainment department at Lycos Europe.

Find René on Twitter @reneseifert and on LinkedIn.

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In episode 36, Kaliya and Oscar discuss the long-running Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) that she co-founded, the effects of moving to virtual identity conferences in 2020, insights from Kaliya's books - 'The Domains of Identity', newly published in 2020, and 'A Comprehensive Guide to Self Sovereign Identity' – plus some great tips for all business leaders on how to view the role of identity in their organisation.

"I think we may be selling self-sovereign identity all wrong. It should be infinitely scalable, low-cost federation. That's really powerful!"

Kaliya Young is the author of two books “The Domains of Identity” and “A Comprehensive Guide to Self Sovereign Identity”.

For the past 15 years, she has been working to catalyse the creation of a layer of identity for people based on open standards. She co-founded the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) in 2005 to bring together technologists who want to see decentralised identity come into being. In the fifteen years their community has been meeting, they have created standards being used all over the internet, like OpenID Connect and OAuth. In 2012 she was recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

The next IIW is in April. Sign up on Eventbrite.

Kaliya is widely recognised for her community leadership. She travels to Africa and Asia at least once a year to ensure the development of person-centric identity is truly global and inclusive. Most recently, she co-founded HumanFirst.Tech with Shireen Mitchell, a project focused on creating space for diverse voices and building a more inclusive industry.

In 2009, she was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology.

Find Kaliya on Twitter @IdentityWoman and LinkedIn.

Check out Kaliya's website at identitywoman.net and her podcast with Seth Goldstein, PSA Today (Privacy, Surveillance, Anonymity).

Regular listeners of Let's Talk About Digital Identity will know that Oscar asks every guest for their top tips on how to protect our digital identities. For 2021, Oscar has a new burning question for all LTADI guests – "for all business leaders listening to us now, what is the one actionable idea that they should write on their agendas today?"

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Khalid and Jimmy J.P. join Oscar for episode 35 of the podcast, discussing everything Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and the SSI company they co-founded, Tykn. The conversation details the 'three pillars of SSI' (verifiable credentials, decentralised identifiers and blockchain), how SSI fits with existing processes, what it should appear as to end users (and what level of education they need around the technology), the importance of accessibility for inclusivity, and what's next for Tykn.

"In 5 years, people should take [SSI] for granted"

After many years working in UX at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior, Khalid’s keen product design knowledge combined with a passion for social impact led him to put all his time and efforts into co-founding the award-winning digital ID company Tykn. Khalid believes Self-Sovereign Identity will positively impact billions of people’s lives and has advocated for its adoption on the most important stages, from the Economic Forum in Africa to the United Nations in NYC. He considers one of his biggest achievements to have co-founded a happy family.

Find Khalid on LinkedIn and on Twitter @Khalidworks.

Jimmy J.P. is a musician, business developer and entrepreneur, currently residing in The Hague, The Netherlands. After having worked as a professional musician in Spain and having started his first company in The Netherlands before the age of 20, Jimmy was accepted into the prestigious McGill University in Montréal, Canada and co-founded the now award-winning digital ID company Tykn. As an evangelist of data privacy and an early adopter of crypto, Jimmy has spoken about the merits of blockchain and self-sovereign identity at conferences and institutions worldwide since 2017, and has been featured in multiple publications, including The Guardian.

Find Jimmy J.P. on LinkedIn and Twitter @idforgood.

Tykn leverages blockchain technology to bring trust, privacy, and interoperability to identity. Tykn’s Ana platform allows organisations to issue tamper-proof digital credentials which are verifiable anywhere, at any time. Users can prove their ID to access services while remaining in full control of what personal data is viewed, shared & stored.

Find out more at tykn.tech.

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In episode 34, Oscar talks to Ilkka about the challenges that financial services face with digital identity, how CIAM helps with those challenges, the Zero Trust model and its applications for remote working, security in digital payments today, and his predictions for the near future of FS.

"Customer Identity and Access Management can enable financial services to do business in this digital world, especially now that people are not able to go to their branch."

Ilkka Hyvönen works as the Head of Cyber Security at Sogeti Finland and has ten years of experience in security consulting. In his free time, he likes to do sports such as running, biking and swimming. Find Ilkka on LinkedIn.

Sogeti is a part of the Capgemini group and offers advisory, implementation and managed services in 15 countries. In addition to digital identity, Sogeti’s cybersecurity services cover cyber security strategy, application security and detection & response. Find out more at www.sogeti.fi.

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