John Cullen, Strategic Marketing Director Digital Identity at Thales, outlines some key predictions for 2024 in the sphere of digital identities.
Verifying one’s identity plays a central role in how today’s society operates – both in online and offline scenarios. Be it at passport control before boarding a flight, renting accommodation, buying alcohol from a supermarket, or accessing your online banking app, confirming your identity is an essential verification stage for countless everyday transactions.
Over the past few years, the way identity verification takes place has dramatically changed thanks to the introduction of digital IDs – electronic certificates used to represent and authenticate users’ identities – streamlining and securing the process for service providers and customers alike.
With the digital identity solution market set to grow to a whopping US$82.3 billion by 2028, what innovations and trends will be taking centre stage in 2024 to contribute to the technology’s wider rollout?
AI will change the game – for good and bad
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already prevalent in various biometric identification systems, improving the efficiency, reliability and accuracy of fingerprint scanning and facial and iris recognition, for example. As AI advances, biometric-enabled digital identities will no doubt become even more of a fool-proof authenticator, with incredible levels of precision in confirming that someone is who they say they are.
But with all emerging technologies, there’s no reward without risk. In fact, the industry is already taking measures to mitigate or ban malicious applications of AI. There are already fears that AI could be used to manipulate and exploit vulnerabilities, as well as engineer impersonations and bypass verification systems. While measures have already been taken by the European Parliament and Council’s AI Act, the industry as a whole should take note of Thales’ responsible ‘TrUE’ Biometrics framework, which outlines the importance of transparent, understandable and ethical use of AI in relation to digital IDs going forward.
Biometrics will become increasingly relevant
Biometrics will play a vital role in advancing digital identities. With biometrics relying upon unique physical characteristics, they enable an incredibly secure identity verification process for all parties involved – a far cry from legacy authenticators like passwords, which are prone to being shared, forgotten, or stolen. With this in mind, Thales anticipates greater cross-industry adoption of biometric-enabled digital identities across a range of industries historically relying upon passwords, including financial and banking services, retail and e-commerce, healthcare and workplace scenarios, for example.
Furthermore, biometrics, as a streamlined authentication process, will become more prevalent in processing identities in line with increased user demand for services. In aviation, for example, the IATA predicts there will be 4.7 billion air travellers in 2024. With such high volumes of international travel, biometrics will be a game changer in seamlessly processing travellers through airports – such as through e-Gates. These automated self-service barriers use data stored in a chip in biometric passports, along with a photo taken at the time of entering. Passport authentication, identity verification and cross-references with government and third-party systems can all be done in a matter of seconds.
In addition, systems like Thales’ Fly to Gate offering do not require travellers to present an ID document or boarding pass at any airport checkpoint whatsoever. Instead, travellers simply enrol once via their mobile phone at home or via a kiosk at the airport, combining facial recognition, liveness detection and document authenticity verifications. A temporary digital token is then created for each passenger flight, enabling automatic identification thanks to face recognition at each checkpoint – including check-in, bag drop off, security control, lounge access and boarding gate. With iris and face recognition already gaining traction in the travel industry, we’ll likely see greater trust and adoption in these technologies the year ahead, too.
There will be a greater focus on identity fraud prevention
With consumers increasingly relying upon online services, finding secure, remote authentication methods will be of utmost importance to mitigate potential cases of identity fraud. Rather than sharing copies of your ID, passport, or bank statements (all containing valuable, sensitive, or confidential information) with new employers or mortgage lenders over email or in an online portal, digital identities can effortlessly verify your credentials, attributes and identity behind the scenes. All with no need to unearth, scan and send countless different documents, the customer experience is enhanced for the consumer, too.
Additional safeguards, such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and digital ID recognition will therefore be put in place across further industries in 2024, so organisations can better protect their customers’ personal data in each and every digital transaction.
Enterprises will grasp the importance of being quantum-ready in 2024
Although quantum is yet to break out of the hypothetical and into realities of many enterprises, this emerging technology will one day have the potential to break certain cryptographic algorithms that currently underpin and secure digital identity systems.
The coming year will be compounded by efforts to fortify digital ID systems against emerging threats that could compromise digital certificates, exposing sensitive personal and financial data and running the risk of identity theft and fraud. 2024 will be a critical juncture for preparing and adapting to the transformative capabilities of Quantum Computing.
The final word
While digital identities are set to be transformed for the better in 2024, additional attention is warranted for developments in AI and Quantum Computing to ensure digital IDs remain one step ahead. Regardless, the potential for streamlined, safe, secure and frictionless cross-industry authentication makes for an exciting year ahead in the digital identity space.
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