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Pillar: No-Code OSS

Telecom's Responsibility in Identity Management

<![CDATA[ The telecom industry is rapidly moving away from the old paradigm of one user, one phone. The lines between phone, VoIP, and IoT are blurring. Now customers manage multiple devices from one account and one phone number. Services…

By Symphonica Team

TL;DR

<![CDATA[ The telecom industry is rapidly moving away from the old paradigm of one user, one phone. The lines between phone, VoIP, and IoT are blurring. Now customers manage multiple devices from one account and one phone number. Services like T-Mobile Digits and V by Vodaphone let customers hop without effort between connected products. Some…

Key takeaways

  • <![CDATA[ The telecom industry is rapidly moving away from the old paradigm of one user, one phone.
  • The lines between phone, VoIP, and IoT are blurring.
  • Now customers manage multiple devices from one account and one phone number.

<![CDATA[

The telecom industry is rapidly moving away from the old paradigm of one user, one phone. The lines between phone, VoIP, and IoT are blurring. Now customers manage multiple devices from one account and one phone number. Services like T-Mobile Digits and V by Vodaphone let customers hop without effort between connected products. Some of these services extend beyond the vendors’ devices to any customers’ computers and online services.

October 2018 is the 15th anniversary of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM). Learn the importance of this day on out blog post October is National Cyber Security Month.

Offering this power puts a serious responsibility on telecom providers. They need to make it convenient for customers to access all their devices. But, even more, is important to protect their security and privacy. Any service that holds information on customer identities is a prime target for attacks. Thieves can get information on thousands or millions of accounts at once if they succeed. Breaches in recent years of password manager data at LastPass and OneLogin show how high the stakes are.

Identity and Access Management

The rise of cloud services has made identity and access management (IAM) software an important issue. Because people use mobile devices so much to do business, it’s becoming a core part of telecom services. Mobile identity management, IAM accessed from a mobile device, is becoming an important buzzword.

IAM handles two key issues.

  • Authentication: Verifying the identity of a person seeking access.
  • Authorization: Determining what services a person has access to and restricting actions accordingly.

The traditional form of authentication on a computer is a password, but it has difficulties. People don’t find it easy to create passwords that are hard to guess. If they succeed, they tend to forget them. Possession of a device isn’t sufficient, either. Millions of mobile devices are stolen every year, so possession of a SIM card isn’t proof of identity. Reliably authenticating users without making the task painfully difficult is a difficult balance to strike. Verification through biometrics such as eye scans and fingerprints has grown popular.

GSMA has endorsed Mobile Connect, a platform-independent protocol, as a standard for mobile authentication. Websites that work with it let people log in from their phones. Not only don’t users have to remember their passwords, but no password at all is sent. This provides a higher level of secure login than password managers, which can sometimes be tricked.

Privacy issues

Protecting the privacy of personal information is an important business responsibility. In most cases, it’s a legal requirement as well. Regulations such as GDPR mandate adequate protection of information that can identify individuals. Disclosure to third parties may require permission. Violations can lead to heavy fines. Minor children are heavy users of mobile devices, and protecting their privacy is especially important.

Extending mobile identity management to independent businesses is an attractive market opportunity. The more services users can access by authenticating on their phones, the more valuable the service is to them. However, giving personal information to these businesses is problematic if the user hasn’t clearly consented.

Users may terminate their relationships with these businesses, and their presence in the IAM service should end when it does, for the protection of both parties. The users should be able to revoke any permissions they’ve granted.

GSMA’s Mobile Connect Privacy Principles offer a valuable summary. They’re intended specifically for the Mobile Connect standard, but for the most part they’re applicable to any mobile identity management service. Important points include:

  • Transparency about what information is collected and how it is used.
  • Giving users choice and control.
  • Minimizing the data retained on individuals.
  • Data security.
  • Special care with children and adolescents, including compliance with applicable laws.
  • Accountability.

The opportunities for mobile identity management are huge, and customers love the convenience. It’s only necessary to keep privacy and security in the forefront all of the time.

October 2018 is the 15th anniversary of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM). Learn the importance of this day on out blog post October is National Cyber Security Month.

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