Intelligent CXO Issue 01 | Page 15

TECH TRENDS identities to access their platforms , helping ensure individuals can be held accountable for what they publish and say .
Key to the success of this will be the work of ‘ trusted identity providers ’ whose role will be to collate and authenticate the digital identities .
From here , these identities can also be incorporated into the IoT ecosystem , creating digital avatars for consumers and employees – making it simpler to access services such as travel or to simplify financial service background checks .
Who owns your identity ?
The potential here is huge : Looking beyond the day-to-day improvements that digital IDs could bring , the most exciting is the potential to create a global certified identity system , which has the capability to collect data on a common identity from multiple places .
Today , individual countries are still the primary trusted provider of identities but looking ahead we must imagine a decentralised system with no central governing body .
By adopting a unique way of characterising every person on earth – whether that ’ s through biological information such as fingerprints or a combination of other factors – it would be possible to create a worldwide decentralised
database of identities , which could not be copied and would act as a uniform means of accessing services across the world .
Here we may find the first critical use of Blockchain outside of cryptocurrency . In a world where we each want to manage our own data , Blockchain could be the ideal way to facilitate significant change in digital identities , by successfully anonymising and decentralising an individual ’ s data – thus improving its security as well as reducing the reliance on a centralised body to control the identities .
These sorts of solutions will be critical for ensuring the mass adoption of digital identities in the future .
Building for the future
Already we ’ re seeing enthusiasm for this ( of a sort ) within the UK ’ s public sector – in recent weeks the government has kick-started plans to introduce a single sign-on and identity
BY ADOPTING A UNIQUE WAY OF CHARACTERISING EVERY PERSON ON EARTH – WHETHER THAT ’ S THROUGH BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION SUCH AS FINGERPRINTS OR A COMBINATION OF OTHER FACTORS – IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO CREATE A WORLDWIDE DECENTRALISED DATABASE OF IDENTITIES .
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