The Missing Identity Layer of the Internet with Gautam Hazari, Sekura.id

Let’s talk about digital identity with Gautam Hazari, mobile identity guru, technology enthusiast, AI expert and futurist & is the CTO of Sekura.id.

Join this episode of Let’s Talk About Digital Identity where Gautam Hazari, mobile identity guru, technology enthusiast, AI expert and futurist & is the CTO of Sekura.id joins Oscar to discuss the missing identity layer of the internet. Gautam shares details about what the missing identity layer is, more about mobile networks as well as discussing Gautam’s TEDx talk.

[Transcript below]

“Internet did not have that identity layer. So what did we do? We created a trust-less model.”

Gautam Hazari is a mobile identity guru, technology enthusiast, AI expert and futurist & is the CTO of Sekura.id, the global leader in mobile identity services. He led the implementation of the mobile identity initiative – Mobile Connect – for around 60 mobile operators across 30 countries. Gautam had also been an advisor to start-ups in digital identity, healthcare, Internet of Things and Fraud and Security management. He is a thought leader for digital identity, advocating solving the identity crisis in the digital world and speaking on making the digital world a safer place. If you ask Gautam, “What is the best password?” you’ll always get the same answer: “The best password is no password”.

Connect with Gautam on LinkedIn.

We’ll be continuing this conversation on Twitter using #LTADI – join us @ubisecure!

Go to @Ubisecure on YouTube to watch the video transcript for episode 99.

Podcast transcript

Oscar Santolalla: On this episode of Let’s Talk About Digital Identity we are joined by Gautam Hazari, from Sekura.ID as we discuss what is the missing Identity layer of the Internet. Stay tuned to find out more.

Let’s Talk About Digital Identity, the podcast connecting identity and business. I am your host, Oscar Santolalla.

Oscar: Hello and thank you for joining us, a new episode of Let’s Talk About Digital Identity. Today’s guest is Gautam Hazari. He is a mobile identity guru, a technology enthusiast, artificial intelligence expert and futurist. And he is the CTO of Sekura.id, the global leader in mobile identity services. Gautam led the implementation of the mobile identity initiative Mobile Connect for around 60 mobile operators across 30 countries. He has also been an advisor to startups in Digital Identity, healthcare, the Internet of Things and fraud and security management. Hello, Gautam.

Gautam Hazari: Hi, Oscar. How are you?

Oscar: Very good, happy to have you here in the show.

Gautam: My pleasure. Thanks.

Oscar: It’s going to be super interesting. Now, we are focusing on mobile – mobile initiatives, like the one you are working with, can help us to solve the identity problems we usually discuss in this show.

First of all, I would like to hear a bit more about yourself. So, if you can tell us your journey to this world of digital identity.

Gautam: Sure. Thanks, Oscar. I have been in the identity space for quite some time now. And it started in the telecom world and that’s why I talk about mobile identity a lot. So I spent many years of my life in the telecom, so I worked with the Vodafone group for nearly 14, 15 years. What I realised is that there is one thing that the mobile operators have done quite efficiently is solving what I call the identity crisis of the internet. I started to talk about it quite passionately in different forms.

And in 2013, end of 2013, GSMA approached me. GSMA as you know is the GSM Association which is the trade organisation for the mobile operators. So the GSMA board was discussing that there were some assets within the mobile operators which can actually help in solving the identity crisis in the internet. Then they approached me that, “Hey, you were talking about this identity thing for quite some time, do you want to come and join?” And that’s when I joined GSMA to do the initiative for mobile operators to solve the identity crisis of the internet.

Then I led the technology for what was known and still known as Mobile Connect Initiative. I was the Chief Architect for Mobile Connect. And then me and my team created the reference architecture, the specification. And then of course, that’s not enough, so I went around the world, worked with the mobile operators to implement it as well. You know, at that time, there were around 62 mobile operators around the world who implemented it. And they did very passionately and this is where I met some of the founders, Mark and Keiron, in GSMA, working with the same team. And then I’m taking that journey forward in a much more accelerated and commercial way in Sekura.id.

Oscar: Yeah, excellent. Well, definitely a lot of your journey is in identity already and mostly in mobile, as you said. Before we start going to what you are doing in Sekura.id and we definitely want to hear more about that. I know that you have a special experience which is you have even a TEDx talk. So if you can tell us a bit of that experience.

Gautam: Yeah. Thanks, Oscar. It has been a fascinating experience actually, while preparing for the TEDx talk and also after that. So I was invited to do this TEDx talk to share my vision and dream of a world without passwords. I have been talking about these things passionately and that’s kind of my personal journey has been as well.

So, I had a lot of learning, you have to compact all that you want to talk within 18 minutes and that’s very interesting, right? If you have a free floating, I mean I’m really, really passionate about this identity thing, I can keep talking for days. But if you need to give your message within 18 minutes that’s quite interesting. So I learned how to deliver the message in that concise way.

And after delivering that, and once the TED organisation published the video in their YouTube. Interestingly, they didn’t actually remove any part of that, generally they do some editing but they didn’t do that for me. I’m really thankful to TED on that. So it happened end of last year. It’s been just one year completed and it has been viewed more than 157,000 times. And I have been receiving some very, very interesting messages from all around the world. From identity enthusiasts to security specialist, and also, from general public as well, saying that awareness is important. And we are having some inertia, right? We have been using passwords since, you know, 1961 actually, even before the internet was invented in 1989. But we don’t actually think that we are actually using it, and the complication that it brings too. I have been fortunate enough to hear lots of personal stories as well. These viewers, they have been sharing their personal stories related to passwords, and discussing what is the solution that can actually solve this.

Yeah, so it has been a fascinating experience and I’m really, really thankful for all the viewers who have been watching it and also most importantly, interacting with it and sharing their stories.

Oscar: Yeah, excellent. Yeah, I also watched and as you said, the way you explained also definitely appeals to the general audience which is of course what mostly TEDx is about, reaching wider audiences. So it’s definitely a good job you have done there. And I am happy to hear also that there have been a lot of conversation because that’s also important that people not only hear the stories or the ideas but also get involved in, spreading those problems, sharing their own pains, et cetera.

Gautam: Thanks, Oscar.

Oscar: I also know that you have written, of course, you write blogs, particularly, I read the you talk about the missing identity layer of the internet, missing identity layer of the internet. Could you tell us what is that?

Gautam: Yeah, absolutely, Oscar. I mean it’s extremely important that we acknowledge and realise that. Let me go back to when the internet was invented, right? Let’s face it, the internet was never designed to identify the human users. It was designed to identify the computers, right? That’s why there are IP addresses. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we humans don’t have IP addresses.

So, in the initial days of the internet, if you remember, all we used to do in the internet was browsing, right? We used to browse AOL, we used to browse Yahoo, different stories within Yahoo. So, it did not matter if for me, Gautam, is browsing AOL or Yahoo, or it’s Oscar browsing, or there’s fraudster who is browsing, right?  Because all we did was browsing the internet. Yes, the returning user needed to be identified, not as Oscar or Gautam but whoever was browsing, right? So that’s why cookies were invented just to provide a continuity of the experience, right?

But then we started to do interesting things on the internet. We started to do commerce on the internet. We started to look for things on eBay and started to pay for those things. We started to do banking on the internet. We started to interact in the social media in the internet. And then it did matter whether it’s me, Gautam, doing that commerce transaction, whether it’s me, Gautam, who is doing that banking transaction or it’s you, Oscar, or it’s