Identity in a Converged Security World

Returning from the KNOW 2019 Conference in Las Vegas this week, a number of thoughts are racing through my mind. First, the conference host, David Burch, was fantastic in describing just how big the challenges around identity are both in the U.S. and around the world. How identity is handled affects every person every day in almost every country. Secondly, identity is a core element of converged security.

As most know, Evolver and eVigilant were merged last September to form Converged Security Solutions (CSS). CSS is formed on the recognition and vision that the physical and cyber worlds are rapidly crashing together and that the lines between our physical world and our digital world are blurring. What the KNOW Conference demonstrated was that this blurring is not years away, but is happening now.

Demonstrations range from Louisiana drivers licenses that are used to determine if someone is over 21 to Australian health records on phones used to enter health facilities. These were just a few of the converged security capabilities that are not dreams but in practice today.

The most dramatic example of the blurring between our digital world and our physical world was provided by Colleen Manaher, Executive Director of Planning, Program Analysis at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  Ms. Manaher showed the results of facial recognition capabilities being used at airports and cruise lines where passengers required no physical forms of identification, simply walk up and get on the plane or boat. The speed improvement of boarding and unboarding was amazing, making the normally difficult process move at a dramatic improvement in efficiency.

Within the next few years, when you want to enter your work building, there will be no badges or tokens.You will just walk up and enter building. After you get into the building and sit down at your laptop there will be no password -- it will know who you are. Oh, and it will know you entered the building as a second check that you are who you are supposed to be. In other words, a true converged security solution.

There are also challenges growing within the converged security world. Privacy, of course, is a major concern because there is a lot of information being collected, stored and used to make the converged security solutions. The cyber threat is no longer just loss of credit card information, but loss of life. I spoke at the conference around the challenges CSS is addressing around security of medical devices. Misidentification in the medical field could mean a patient gets the wrong medicine or an incorrect medical procedure.

I had someone ask me “what was the most positive outcome I took away from the conference?” For me, it was that the CSS vision is coming to fruition at lightning speed and we are heading for some exciting times.

We’ll be discussing more of the issues brought up at KNOW on the CSS website and LinkedIn page. Be sure to follow that page for more viewpoints.