Inclusive Identity

A Change; Technology making a Difference

Back in 2005, I left my job in a management consulting firm to join a start-up; to make a change – to make banking more accessible for the masses. This was a time when mobile telephony was booming, so it made absolute sense to ride the surging wave. 3G was getting more commercially deployed. Even though the game-changing iPhone wouldn’t land later till 2007, habits had already started evolving. In emerging markets, “data” or mobile internet would remain a luxury and out-of-reach for the masses for a few years, but information exchange had already started growing nearly exponentially. SMS (text messages) emerged as the unsung hero for data-sharing, leading to a plethora of value-added services (VAS). The ubiquity of the mobile phone couldn’t be more evident than the utility of those 160 characters bundled in a short message. These value-added services included simple services like getting weather updates or news alerts; to enabling smaller businesses the luxury of cheaply transferring business information wirelessly, bypassing limitations of wired connectivity or lack of connectivity altogether. Accurate weather update over SMS for an individual would be more of a convenience for a consumer planning whether to bring their umbrella along or not. But for a farmer in a remote area, that same information could drastically impact livelihood. In banking and financial services, “Financial Inclusion”, getting the unbanked into the fold of banking, seemed to be turning into a reality with the pervasiveness of mobile phones and the ability to do financial transactions over SMS or USSD. And it did, in many countries. Then, came the iPhone.

The Digital Divide

Though not the first smartphone, iPhone was definitely “the” game-changer. The super-intuitive user experience augmented by the app ecosystem propelled mobile computing to a whole new level. The exclusivity of the iPhone and the associated cost, however, already put this ecosystem beyond an average person’s reach. Android kind of fixed that problem, making powerful mobile computing more accessible to the masses due to economies of scale. While mobile computing was shaping user behavior, the evolution of cloud computing in the background was fueling the digitalization of the back-end. Productivity or gains achieved through digitalization, however, seem to be a function of the amount of computing available, both at the edge and in the cloud; and also a function of the power of connectivity. As a simple example, just try to imagine what you can achieve with a text message as opposed to a mobile app on a smartphone connected over 5G. Even worse, imagine someone who doesn’t have a phone or connectivity or perhaps the technical literacy to use a phone.

A plethora of citizen-related services, or the information thereof, are delivered digitally now. So, going beyond the weather alerts or financial services, how are the less connected or disconnected citizens or consumers supposed to receive basic services like healthcare, if they don’t even have a phone or reliable connectivity? Simply put, this is the digital divide.

Identity in the Digital Age

Identification, or often the problem of identification, goes way back. Paper-based identification was not a bad ploy, till someone figured out a way to forge that form of identification. Digitalization, seems to have aggravated both the need for identification and the security of your identity. The need stems from our dependence on digital channels for our daily work and personal lives. We need access to business applications to run our day-to-day work tasks, just they way we need access to apps for social interactions or getting personal work done.

Identity, or digital identity in this case, becomes a pivotal factor in granting you access to your digital world. Imagine a very common example that you encounter every other day, where you need to access a service provider (a bank, an insurance company, a telco etc.), and you leverage your identity from an identity provider. Commonly referred to as BYOI or BYOID (bring your own identity), it's a very seamless and convenient way to access a digital service. However, what happens if you don’t have a Facebook account or a Gmail address to log in to this service provider?

Inclusive and Accessible Identity for Consumers and Citizens

If you have a smartphone, Internet and an email address, it’s highly likely that you’re sorted. Speaking of those SMS days, and perhaps even today, your phone number (or MSISDN) is a great identifier. Understandably a huge trend has been brewing in the technology realm – phone as the de facto identifier for your digital transactions. While a smartphone has truly become intrinsic to our everyday life, digital transactions have a life predating your phone. When you start thinking about your debit or credit card for payments, your driver’s license for citizen services, or your health card for healthcare services, you’ll quickly realize that there are many other forms of identities and identity providers that you use on a daily basis, which give you access to online information and do not rely on smartphones. These alternatives make digital identity a lot more inclusive and accessible. While a person without a phone or mobile Internet is still at a disadvantage of sorts, at least they can be ensured access to basic digital services without owning an expensive device. Going further, one could potentially be a part of certain digital transactions without owning any physical form of identifier. This is where biometric identification and authentication could come into play.

Inclusive and Accessible Identity for Employees and Business Users

The business world is no different. An organization has a very broad spectrum of users. If a smartphone is their only means to log in to their business applications, we’re already creating a barrier. Whether due to the nature of work or for privacy reasons, an employee or business user may not want to use their phone to access applications. Can first responders, for example be expected to carry their smartphone around if they need to log in to a remote terminal for critical information? And now with OT (operational technology) mingling with IT (information technology), this problem becomes even more relevant. How does a factory floor worker access critical information? The breadth of the spectrum of users and scenarios in the business world become even more pronounced. An inclusive identity in such cases can be a great enabler of higher productivity, in addition to a superior user experience.

Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Identities

AI has a bit of duality to it when it comes to digital inclusion. AI can have a transformational impact on how we access digital services. At the literal forefront is generative and conversational AI, which is transforming how we interact with and consume digital services. At the back is the adoption of capabilities like machine learning or RPA (robotic process automation), that fuels the intelligence of those interactions. At the barebones though, AI is also a function of computing power. AI requires extra and specialized computing power – one of the reasons that propelled Nvidia into one of the most valuable companies in the world. This specialized computation is a significant factor that has led large technology providers into building purpose-built chips. All this specialized infrastructure, in a way, increases the barrier to entry for businesses, also increasing the cost of deploying AI at the edge (in smartphones, for example). So, while conversational AI is amazing because it can literally speak to a technologically illiterate person in their own language; the vessel (the smartphone!) that delivers that capability to this person is still beyond the reach of such individuals.

A nod to the Smartcard

The smartcard turned 50 a few days ago. Billions of people use smartcards across the globe for multiple applications – SIM cards in mobile connectivity, banking cards, transport cards, drivers’ licenses, passports, office badges and so on. For different industry verticals, a smartcard is able to store your identity credentials in a rather inexpensive but highly secure storage. And while modern smartphones have alternative ways to store such credentials, the question for affordability and accessibility cannot be overlooked. As an example, today, when industry experts speak of topics like digital wallets (a mechanism to store your identity credentials), they tend to bind the concept specifically to the smartphone, as if a technology like smartcard that has been acting as a digital wallet for decades doesn't even exist. By doing so, we're ignoring a huge population that either cannot own a phone or is not literate enough to use digital wallets on it. Though smartcards aren’t the only means for making identity inclusive, the example just illustrates how myopic views of shaping the future of identity can certainly not be helpful to the cause.

Inclusive Identity means Inclusive Progression

Just to be clear, I don’t see the smartphone or the cloud or AI as the epicenter of all evil. I just bought a new phone recently myself. More importantly, I should say that I had the privilege of buying a new one! Today is the International Identity Day. 16.09 was deliberately chosen to reflect the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, which highlights the importance of a legal identity for every individual. The day is marked to reflect on three fundamentals in Identity: Inclusion, Protection and Empowerment. Whether it’s for consumer services or business interactions, access to applications and data is a basic need. Identity or digital identity is the key to unlock the benefits of a digital world. Product managers building digital products for consumers or IAM practitioners building their strategy for their workforce or third-party users need to be cognizant of their users' context. As a community, it is imperative that we take an inclusive approach to address the future of identity. Happy International Identity Day.

DISCLAIMER: All the cool views presented in this post are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my past or present employers.