2022 – The Winds of Change Are Blowing

In his seminal protest song ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, Robert Zimmerman (that’s Bob Dylan to you and me) wrote ‘You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’. Whilst that may be the case if you’re standing in the open air with a gale blowing, it would have been helpful to take a look at a barometer before you stepped outside!

As I see it, the big question for 2022 is whether we’re in the middle of the storm… or is there more to come?

As in previous years, I asked some brave weathermen and women from the ID and secure document industry to take a look at their barometers and make some predictions as to where the head and tail winds will be pushing and pulling us this year.

One was Veridos, which sees two trends as key to the industry’s fortunes in 2022.

Trend 1: Digital identities are on the rise

A digital ID offers many advantages, such as a convenient and secure access to eGovernment services. The first governments are already defining standards for digital identities: the European Commission is working on a ‘European Digital Identity Framework’ containing common requirements for interoperable national digital identities in the EU member states. The framework is planned to be ready in September this year.

In practice, citizens would store their sovereign documents in a digital wallet, for example via an app on the mobile phone. The digital identity could also be used for services in the private sector such as opening a bank account, tax returns, but also for check-ins at hotels.

The digitisation of the driving licence is an important part of this development, as it is particularly relevant in many countries. With its VeriGo solution, Veridos has its finger on the pulse. It is helping governments to enroll the entire infrastructure for digital driving licences, as it recently did in Kosovo. It was the first mobile driving licence in the world to be implemented countrywide. Many similar projects will follow in 2022.

Trend 2: Seamless Travelling

The pandemic and its necessary social distancing rules were a strong accelerator, but the trend toward automating border controls continues. Veridos therefore offers a kiosk solution where travelers can preregister before crossing the border.

Such solutions significantly reduce processing time at airports. Since passenger data is already available before travel, border control authorities can perform initial risk analysis, which enables faster processing of standard travellers.

Additional travel documents that are prerequisites for a safe stay in certain countries, such as vaccination certificates, can be provided. With the Technical Report on Visible Digital Seals, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has set a standard for internationally usable vaccination certificates that uses existing infrastructures and procedures. Therefore, it can be easily implemented.

Contactless and standardisation

Bart Crols, VP of Bid Management and Sales and Steve Warne, Senior Director Product Marketing in the Citizen Identity Solutions Business Area from HID Global had the following thoughts:

• Contactless. The move towards contactless technologies will continue, driven by both the desire for personal convenience and health protection considerations post-COVID. Not only will this mean that digital identity continues to gather pace, but that contactless biometric processing for identity enrolment and use will become much more widespread.

• Standardisation. With digital identity, vaccine certificates and travel documents all gathering momentum, technologies for their creation, use and verification have proliferated, with many new entrants to the identity market. The work which is already ongoing to create interoperable standards in this space will accelerate to allow deployment of these new, potentially more inclusive digital credentials.

• A shift in the identity market. The push towards digital has created new opportunities and interest in the identity space. The traditional government identity market and commercial identity authentication are overlapping, which has made identity of great interest to large commercial organisations. The impact of this will likely see greater collaboration between governments, traditional identity providers and new market players.

More perspectives on the year ahead

According to Alex van Duuren, AVD Solutions, ‘the future is kind of foggy as COVID-19 changes the current focus on short term strategies. Although it offers chances as well.

‘I do hope the yellow vaccination booklet will be substituted to a part of the RFID of the passport, where in future we can write visa information, entry-exit and vaccinations. I believe ID and vaccination information written in an ID document is more future proof compared with QR codes in phones, as a phone is not a legal ID document according to law. How do we verify that a phone really belongs to a physical person, without authenticating of their ID and biometric verification.

‘In addition, operability… I do hope countries, ICAO, will have a future plan to adopt biometrics which are highly accurate. At this moment our international standard is a 15kb low resolution jpeg image. That’s no innovation! We use 15kb low resolution images as a standard for biometric verification, although an average phone or capture device will easily take an image with a quality of 50x-100x better. This will have a huge impact on the accuracy, so on our safety. As we adopt Automated Border Gates worldwide rapidly, we need to rethink our standards, and so our safety.

‘We need to find a balance between electronic security features and physical security features, but before we do, when on earth will we improve our breeder documents? As long as we don’t start on the most important first steps of our Identity process, the registration, it’s useless to focus on other innovations in the identity process. For years we experienced ID fraud within the weak link of our chain, but we are not willing to create a better link. A chain is a combination of different links. The weakest link determines the strength of the chain!

‘I am also looking forward to the implementation of the European Union’s Entry/Exit system (EES). It will be a nightmare for EU airports so be prepared for long waiting lines!’

Meanwhile, Dr Alan Hodgson, of Alan Hodgson Consulting Ltd, identifies four predictions:

• Sustainability. Every industry, including ours, will have to be seen to play its part.

• Fingerprint technology. Established in smartphone and emerging in payment cards. Both look set to evolve in different directions.

• The struggle over identity ownership. How much remains with the individual and how much is appropriated by technology.

• The competition between biometric technologies – this will hot up this year.

Achim Hildebrandt – Former Head of Passports and ID Cards, Germany Federal Ministry of the Interior, says that ‘in terms of digitisation, the Corona period has been showing shortcomings and pressure to act like a burning glass.

‘In this respect, developments in network expansion (stable, high-performance and locally unlimitedly accessible) are to be expected, at least politics and society are now tackling this with more force. Healthcare and education (children’s facilities, schools, colleges/universities as well as in the area of further education/adult qualification) appear as main points.

‘Two lines will also be visible in 2022 for the area of ID verification. On the one hand, the idea that conventional documents still have a future carries on. On the other hand, there will be supplementary addons, ie. expressly, and as a starting point, not a substitute, eSolutions. For example, intensive work is being carried out on this in the EU using the eIDAS approach.

‘Experience with vaccination proofs will generally be incorporated. The solution is Janus-faced, initially a functioning eSolution that is used millions of times a day. However, the solution has been significantly devalued because it is based on a paper document which can be easily forged.

‘All in all, the ID verification area will continue to be stable on the pillars of the conventional – passports, ID documents, driving licences. At the same time, functionality and security are complemented by eSolutions. This will, for example, affect test mechanisms or new functionalities, for example from the areas of gender, diversity and accessibility. Or in addition to a physical visa – as can be seen from EU documents – an eVisa. In this respect, the potential for challenges is enormous and demanding. Creativity and new thinking are required.'