Recognising that citizens expect mobile solutions for all of life's problems in the smartphone age, governments across the world – the US in particular – have already started moving towards a digital version of ID credentials that can reside on devices.But while it may be easier for commercial sectors such as the payments and travel sphere to shift solutions onto a phone, there are multifarious issues, including on privacy and rights, raised where government and citizens are involved.The potential benefits are great: dynamic updating of details or validity, new and powerful data-based security on documents such as such as driver's licenses.However, the challenges are also significant. Such as, could a simple battery failure lead to a denied identity check?Security Document World set out to tackle such questions last month with the help of high-profile experts, in the webinar "The future of government-issued mobile identities".The webinar's expert panel included Neil Akass, digital driving licence service designer at the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and Arjan Geluk, principal advisor for UL Transaction Security ISO and taskforce leader for mobile driving license, from the Netherlands.Hosting the panel was Mark Lockie, publishing director of SecurityDocumentWorld.com, and Steve Warne, director of solutions marketing at Government ID Solutions, HID Global.In this follow-up interview, we asked Warne for further thoughts on the development of mobile ID. Please see under the interview for a chance to watch the webinar againWhy is there such interest in mobile ID?Our mobile devices, smartphones in particular, have become an indispensable part of our lives. We are now able to carry out so many of our daily tasks and activities from these devices with efficiency and convenience. As such, many physical credentials, tokens and documents have moved to mobile. Just consider payment cards, boarding passes, loyalty cards etc. Secure identity credentials are one of the last things to migrate, so while physical identity documents will be around for a long time as a compliment to mobile identities, Governments, licencing authorities and other issuers have recognised the benefits and the demand from citizens for such mobile credentials.In terms of the benefits of mobile ID, what would you tell a government considering an initiative?A mobile identity brings benefits, not only to the citizen but also to the government and other users of the identities. For the government the main benefits are engaging more closely with their citizens, the ability to maintain and update identity credentials in real time, simplification in authentication, and finally efficiencies in the enrolment and renewal processes. Additionally, there is no major infrastructure or hardware deployment needed to support mobile identity, making them more accessible and useful to both the citizen and government alike.What have been your greatest challenges in developing mobile ID solutions?The greatest challenges in developing a mobile ID solution have been in addressing the important issues of privacy and security, while delivering a flexible and convenient solution which works both on-line and off-line. The HID goID solution is based on Seos technology which has been in development for more than five years to truly address these issues in a way which is interoperable, standards based and auditable. Creating apps which look great, with a limited feature set is relatively easy, it is the underlying technology to truly protect an individual's identity from any kind of attack, which takes know-how, investment, development and most of all time.
Webinar interview: HID’s Steve Warne on mobile identities
