1) Could you describe your company, and the products/solutions that you will be presenting during TRUSTECH 2021?
IDEMIA is the global leader in Augmented Identity and biometric solutions. Over the past 40 years we have built strong relationships with governments and have assisted countries and organizations with protecting their citizens. By providing every individual with a valid and secure identity, IDEMIA creates a trusted environment that makes the lives of citizens safer and easier.
The Group is a leader in civil ID solutions – with over 130 customers and more than 3 billion identity documents issued.
We are happy to be at Trustech to present our latest innovations in the area of identity documents. We will present technologies that will help fight fraud and guarantee a unique and reliable identity for citizens.
2) In your opinion, what are the current trends that are providing opportunities for your company?
The pandemic has highlighted a crucial need for continuous and remote access to services, particularly in the public sector. Remote access to services helped to limit the risk of the virus spreading. It is now crucial to provide trusted means of authentication for services. This will allow essential operations to be performed remotely in order to keep the economy afloat. Our electronic and biometric identity card solutions meet this growing need for service and security. These demands also remind us of the importance of the physical document. It is indispensable for accessing the digital world securely with the phygital concept that allows the document authentication remotely.
Moreover, the establishment of trusted health passports is a key step in regaining confidence. Governments, as trusted actors, are in the right position to guarantee authenticity of the health certificates and leverage existing Public Key Infrastructure for issuance of ICAO Visible Digital Seal. However, as fraud grows across the continent, we also need to design documents that are hard to reproduce but easy to inspect. This is IDEMIA's philosophy and our raison d'être.
3) Why did you choose to participate at TRUSTECH 2021? Will you be presenting innovative products or solutions during this event?
Trustech is one of the major events in the identity industry calendar. After nearly two years of being prevented from attending, and conforming with health and safety guidelines, we are delighted to be back at the show. This is also a wonderful opportunity to meet with our customers and partners. It is an essential forum for revitalizing our sector, comparing points of view, and proposing technologies for the progress of society. Despite the pandemic IDEMIA has continued to invest and innovate. At Trustech 2021 we are looking forward to revealing our latest disruptive technology based on optical variable elements to prevent fraud.
4) How is TRUSTECH 2021 important for growing your business?
The 2021 event is special for us because it marks the return of physical gatherings that are not only essential for our collective psychological wellbeing, but also more prosaically, for our business. At IDEMIA, we are convinced that we cannot develop projects, meet new clients, or demonstrate expertise solely through the virtual world. This existence may have enabled us to endure these two years, however it is not an acceptable normality for the long term.
5) Where do you intend to grow your business in the future (countries or verticals)?
Given that 1.1 billion people on earth still do not have an identity, we would first like to approach those countries that need to deliver a reliable and secure identity to their population.
We are committed to interoperability and open standards programs to enable countries to initiate genuine national identity programs. This issue also concerns the sovereignty of states, so that they have the necessary tools to implement these projects in complete security.
Unfortunately, identity fraud remains a scourge that we must combat by developing trusted documents. Using biometrics is certainly one of the methods for providing safe enrollment. However, we need to speak truthfully and transparently and reassure our interlocutors about this technology. It has demonstrated its worth and is the best proof of a person's authentication. Additionally, we develop trusted documents that include advanced security features in line with our ID security concept: documents that are hard to reproduce but easy to inspect.
At the heart of our concept, we attach great importance to phygital; the move from physical inspection to digital inspection of the document. The number of situations in which the verification of an identity document is required is growing. Our challenge is to allow secure and quick verification of documents with Optical Machine Authentication, for example, a smartphone camera or document scanner.
Last but not least, the bridge between physical and digital identity will be the other great challenge of this century. In an increasingly digital world, the protection of privacy and identity online is becoming the center of the debate. The identity industry definitely has a role to play.