Webinar on Digital Identity and Authentication: What Experts Had to Say

Last Thursday, May 28th, we had the pleasure of hosting our first live webinar on the impact of COVID-19 on digital identity and mobile user authentication.

Jim Small, SVP for business development at IPification, represented us and moderated the panel discussion. We were proud to be joined by guest speakers from world’s leading companies when it comes to digital identity: Morgan Webb, Principal PM Manager for Microsoft Identity Engineering Product group; Andy Kim, Head of the PASS platform at South Korea Telecom; and Gus Tomlinson, General Manager of Identity Fraud at GBG.

The webinar started off with general talk about changes that have come about as a result of COVID-19. For example, did you know that in April 2020, Zoom’s video conferencing app handled 300 million global meeting participants per day, up from 19 million in December 2019? Or that during Q1, 2020 global sales on Amazon increased by 26%, reaching $75.5 billion, compared to sales of $59.7 billion in Q1 of 2019?

These numbers matter, because they are a clear indicator of how many people have suddenly become vulnerable to fraud, and how much harder we have to think about the issue of mobile authentication.

Our first speaker, Andy Kim, explained what has changed in South Korea since the pandemic hit. As a consequence of COVID-19, their PASS platform is now handling 80 million transactions a month, as opposed to the usual 60 million! Stepping up to this huge responsibility, they took charge of keeping people safe both online and offline. Not only does PASS help authenticate users of South Korea’s Disaster Support Fund as well as students joining the online classes, but it has a huge role in stopping the spread of the pandemic. It does so by closely following people in crowded places and letting them know if they’re in danger — further proof that great authentication can change and save lives.

Gus Tomlinson focused on questions of ethics and privacy, namely, how do we make online experiences for customers simple, safe, and secure? It’s more important than ever, with the huge spike in traffic. Especially when it comes to online retail, what we’ve been seeing lately is a lot more risky behavior on the user side and some innovative approaches from fraudsters. Protecting users from those who always seem to be one step ahead is additionally complicated by another factor, as Gus reminded listeners. This is the sudden influx of not-so-tech-savvy people into the digital world. So, now that we have, say, someone who’s 75 and has never made a single online transaction before suddenly dabbling in eCommerce, how do we make sure they are just as protected from fraud as a tech-savvy millennial is?

One answer to that question was the focus of Morgan Webb’s presentation: platforms and partnerships! He proposed, to widespread agreement, that in order to address customers’ concerns, we need to collaborate with each other and take advantage of open platforms such as AzureAD B2C. This platform’s main goal is to create a simple authentication experience that doesn’t compromise when it comes to security — something we at IPification fully support. Microsoft manages to do find the sweet spot of creating a seamless experience for enterprises and users alike by focusing on digital identity as the key area for control. Despite the sudden rise in work from home and the additional burden placed on security professionals around the globe, Microsoft users can still authenticate themselves or their users seamlessly through this platform, thanks to Microsoft’s key partnerships with companies like IPification or SK Telecom.

Finally, our listeners were left with food for thought. Gus reminded us, “We’re not just there to protect our businesses, we’re ultimately there to also make it safe for the consumers online.” And Andy closed with the observation that “[Korean] Mobile operators are very competitive, but this — identity and authentication — is not a competing area.” These ideas complement each other and showcase our firm commitment to work together with other companies towards providing the best digital identity solutions.

To listen to the whole discussion and hear everything our expert guests had to say about the problem at hand, register here and listen to the recording of the webinar.

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