On Tuesday 17th November, the European Association for e-Identity and Security (EEMA) welcomed 600 individuals from 35 countries to the first of six webinars in the series 'Information Security Solutions for Europe (ISSE)'.
The first webinar, titled ‘Why don’t you know who I am?’ addressed the current obstacles faced during the onboarding process, outlining the limitations in acquiring customers and citizens to register for e-Identification.
John Erik Setsaas, VP of Identity and Innovation at Signicat, drew attention to prominent findings of the latest research.
41% of 4000 interviewees were unable to access financial services through COVID-19 period. 63% of interviewees had abandoned onboarding processes for financial services.
Furthermore, the reasons for abandonment were all the more familiar to those working in this industry; interviewees found the process took too long, the language was too complicated etc.
The presentations and discussions followed on from these salient points; how can we ensure a smoother, more efficient way of onboarding without compromising security? David Rihak, Digital Identity Director at ADUCID, argued one fundamental issue we face right now is that less secure is more convenient. Katyryna Dow, CEO at Meeco, proposed that portable and reusable identity is the next wave of digitisation, and that leveraging loosely called decentralised identity can enable open eco-systems without the need for tight integration with the credential issuer, hence fewer obstacles in the onboarding process.
The panel harmonised in agreement that the issues to address are only growing as the world is shifting digitally by necessity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Onboarding is a far-reaching problem and it's ultimately the customer need rather than desire to own and deploy a digital identity across the IOT which is currently accelerating innovation forward.
Steve Purser, Head of Core Operations Department at ENISA, drew on a more fundamental and pragmatic approach to addressing the onboarding challenges in a separate webinar in the ISSE series. He argued that eID systems need to be genuinely secure up to the necessary point based on the context of the situation. Intricate onboarding processes for seemingly insignificant problems are holding back adoption, potentially causing abandonment. Citizens are neither interested nor satisfied with long verification processes in cases where highest-level security is not paramount. The onboarding process must be quick and easy to customers, otherwise we end up reverting to previous verification means which may be less secure.
In summary, the onboarding process currently demonstrates limitations teething issues in the form of complexities which are consequently causing wide-scale abandonment, even during a time where solutions are becoming a necessity rather than a desire. The industry is looking for a solution that creates an easy registration and proofing process without compromising on security. Quick sign up, excellent user experience and secure verification are all a must to fulfil a smooth on-boarding process.
ZealiD has created this solution. A Qualified Trust Service Provider, Certificate Authority and Registration Authority that can be onboarded in 3 minutes from a smartphone.
Our onboarding philosophy addresses the problem directly at the user level, complying to the highest standards and legislation without over complicating the experience. Ease of use, accessibility, portability, speed of verification and security are packaged into our app-based solution to solve the very problems that industry leaders discuss today.
Head to www.zealid.com to learn more about ZealiD's innovative approach to digital identification.