The national identity phone

[Dave Birch]  There was an interesting discussion about biometrics at the Digital Identity Forum and there were some idea floating around about how biometrics could be used as part of an identity infrastructure in the mass market.  Meanwhile, in Japan, DoCoMo’s new handsets include the 903i series which come preinstalled with the software required to use DoCoMo’s DCMX™ mobile credit card on DoCoMo’s iD™ platform (contactless payments), a GPS service that enables a misplaced handset to be located with a PC, biometric authentication (based on fingerprint, face or voice), the Omakase Lock and Data Security Service that enables users who lose their phone to call a 24/7 number and have the phone’s smart card and personal data locked immediately, Original Certificate which enables user identification certificates issued by service providers such as banks to be downloaded and stored in the handset and used as digital signatures for SSL client authentication.  They also come with the ANSHIN-KEY, a special IC-card key carried in a wallet or handbag to automatically lock/unlock the phone depending on the proximity of the key and the phone.  My new UK phone came with… well, nothing really.  But it has got a much better camera than my old one.

Technorati Tags: biometrics, contactless, e-purse, identity, mobile, security

DoCoMo say that the phones can function as an e-wallet and personal identification card.  Digital money and digital identity in one small package.  As a number of people mentioned at the Digital Identity Forum, right now it’s difficult to see a more suitable or practical device than the mobile phone.  Which is why recurrent stories about the "digital divide" seem to miss the point.  Who cares whether 44% of UK households don’t use the web and of those more than 70% say they have little or no intention of getting connected.  All of those households have mobile phones and a great many of them have digital television as well.  These people would, I’m sure, much rather use their mobile phone as an ID card than have yet another card in their pockets.  Despite the slow progress from initiatives such as Radicchio (now part of the Liberty Alliance), it can only be a matter of time before people who need strong identification and authentication services will begin to standardise on mobile phones for the delivery of such services.  Oh wait….

Of course, there are ways to use mobile phones to support stronger authentication now, without biometrics or anything else special.  An obvious example is the use of one-time passwords (OTPs) sent by SMS that are requested by consumers each time they want to perform transactions.  This how our intranet works: if you’re using a machine that doesn’t have the relevant CHYP certificate, you can type in your name and our system will send an OTP to your mobile if you are an authorised person.  This gets you on to the intranet for half an hour.  Simple.