Debbie Reynolds “The Data Diva” talks to Karyn Bright, the Chief Communications Consultant at Understanding Identity and an Executive team member for Women In Identity. We discuss her journey into identity, the human aspects of identity in a digital world, her involvement with women with Women In Identity, impact of bias on Identity systems, the code of conduct project to guide companies to develop more inclusive identity systems, the digital divide and its impact on identity, reuse of technology and unintended consequences on identity systems, the link between Identity and Data Privacy, eliminating friction in identity systems as it relates to privacy and hopes for Data Privacy in the future.
Debbie Reynolds “The Data Diva” talks to Karyn Bright, the Chief Communications Consultant at Understanding Identity and an Executive team member for Women In Identity. We discuss her journey into identity, the human aspects of identity in a digital world, her involvement with women with Women In Identity, impact of bias on Identity systems, the code of conduct project to guide companies to develop more inclusive identity systems, the digital divide and its impact on identity, reuse of technology and unintended consequences on identity systems, the link between Identity and Data Privacy, eliminating friction in identity systems as it relates to privacy and hopes for Data Privacy in the future.
48:52
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
identity, people, data, privacy, customer, thinking, product, organization, women, problem, technology, world, system, populations, consumer, smartphone, identify, understanding, story, solutions
SPEAKERS
Karyn Bright, Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds 00:00
Personal views and opinions expressed by our podcast guests are their own and are not legal advice or official statements by their organizations. Hello, my name is Debbie Reynolds; they call me “The Data Diva”. This is “The Data Diva Talks” Privacy podcast, where we discuss Data Privacy issues with industry leaders around the world, with information that businesses need to know now. Today I have a special guest on the show, and I’m actually giggling and laughing before we started recording; I know her well. And it’s a thrill to have her on the show. On the show, we have Karyn Bright, a Communications Consultant at Understanding Identity. Hello, Karyn.
Karyn Bright 00:48
Hi, everybody.
Debbie Reynolds 00:50
Well, you don’t know how excited I am to have you on the show. You and I’ve been collaborating together for a while now. On other identity-related things, and you know, I love Identity, people, people who work in this space, because I feel like you are so close to a lot of the privacy issues that people have. So, you know, I had the pleasure of, of starting to get into Identity actually, in 2019, I was asked to speak at identity conference in Amsterdam, and I met so many wonderful people in a space that people were very welcoming to me as an outsider, you know, not a person that Identity. And over the years, I’ve grown a lot of friends and clients in that area. But you’re first of all your fascinating, your background, can’t wait for you to tell the audience about that. And just sort of talk to me about kind of Identity in general and sort of your trajectory of where you are now and understanding identity.
Karyn Bright 02:02
Hi, yeah, thanks, Debbie. Yeah, and it’s great to be chatting with you. And that’s kind of the broader, the broader issues around Identity. Because I don’t really come from the typical background that many identity people do have product or regulatory or policy. I’m a marketing and comms professional. And I’ve always worked in the field of data. So one of my kind of first jobs was with a big data analytics company that did clinical trial data. And for my sins, I think I’m a bit of a data nerd, and really, in that, I love what data tells you. And I don’t ask me anything about the technology or about the techniques or the statistical sort of analysis, and I have to be done. But I do love what comes out of data. And I can always remember with, with a company that I was first working with back in the UK when we went to do a demonstration of our software to one of the big supermarkets that were just launching loyalty cards. And so this is taking you back quite a way now; you’ll probably work out that list into the 90s. And actually looking at what was a whole lot of data points visualized on a screen, and being able to drill into that and say, Actually, this particular customer buys product X and product y. And they typically shop at this time, and they are interested in these other sorts of products which they buy from time to time. For me, that was like the lightbulb moment, and I just couldn’t believe that what would have been just a load of numbers and sort of bits and bytes. And it kind of really only understood by a lot of very techie people suddenly came to life in front of the customer, when we work could actually name an individual customer and actually, look at what that story told. So I kind of moved through the data world from what was in the 1990s, really the heyday of CRM, customer support, and what other products they might be interested in. It was kind of the forerunner of the Amazon style customers who bought this might also like this, and we did a lot of work around understanding customer behavior, customer likes, and preferences. And the stories that come out of the data at that level. Were just fascinating when you could uncover certain types of product groups that would maybe sit well with others. But what we saw then, in 2001, to really kind of presuppose post 911 was with the increase in regulations and increased in sort of internet coming on board as well. There was suddenly it wasn’t just an issue of understanding the kind of products that customers want there was starting to become an issue was this customer even who they said they were. So I then moved to work in 2002 for a company that’s one of the first companies to launch electronic ID verification. So they had previously done CRM solutions. Now they were interested in well, and we know what that customer likes to buy, but is that customer even who they say and who they claim to be? So the whole way of actually using data as a method of confirming that this really is Debbie Reynolds, and she is the person that we should be talking to, that opened up a whole new gamut of applications and conversations. But in a way, that was the start of the problem I think we have today because what that meant was it got it became a regulatory issue, and it became a product-focused issue. And it became a tech issue about how you could get the data through and confirm certain types of attributes, certain pieces of information was less about who the customer really was, and more about doesn’t matter does not match, can we find them on certain datasets, credit bureau data, and so on telephone data. And if we can’t, then we will effectively reject them. And I think because it was led so much by the tech companies, when we got to 2007, with the launch of smartphone technology, where the customer started to take a lot more control because suddenly they could create their own content, they could create their own persona, they could, they could have a lot more power and control over of how they wanted to present themselves. That’s when I think we got into a bit of a model with Identity because actually, Identity stayed very much a technical issue. It became all about, you know, talk about attributes, second-factor authentication, PKI, keys, you know, tokens authentication versus identification versus verification; it became a whole language that actually nobody in the consumer world understood. So what I have been really doing in the last 10 years is trying to help organizations redress that balance a little bit, and start bringing the whole topic of Identity into a much more human conversation, much more understanding of the way here, the consumer or the user out there thinks about their Identity. And they certainly don’t think about their Identity in terms of second-factor authentication, or, you know, certain attributes or certain keys. for them. It’s a much more philosophical, almost emotional connection. And I think the problem we’ve got at the moment is that the people who have to be identified, see, Identity is one thing, and the companies that provide the technologies to identify them see it as something quite different. And it’s that bridging that I’m particularly interested in working in, and we’ve worked together through women in Identity, on making that story a much more human one and a much more a story that’s much easier to understand by the whole populations that are affected by identity solution, and the decisions that get made.
Debbie Reynolds 07:40
That’s fascinating. Now, this is for a week, we worked together, and I didn’t even know that backstory. That’s fascinating. I think you’re right, I think, you know, Identity is about the human, and I feel like the human is now going to be the center of everything. So absolutely, for a lot of these solutions, we’re all about the business. So you know, we have this, we want to collect this data. And then you know, the person was just kind of a part of that story where now it’s like, the person is the story, and then absolutely center everything around the human. And I said that I so I did a speech, I consumer identity world, I guess I give a shout out to company or Coke, they hosted that event, you know, and I said, then I’m like, I didn’t need to me it’s like the center of like, everything that happens in the future, because companies have to move from, you know, just thinking about data in terms of their own business interest and think about, you know, you know, a person to me is going to be a bank have their own data, and they’re going to have to pick and choose what they show or what they share. But then also, right now, we have so much fragmentation about the type of data that businesses have about people. So they’re, you know, they’re maybe making judgments about people on something that isn’t like a fulsome view of that person, but then that person should be able to choose what they share. So, like I say.
Karyn Bright 09:13
Absolutely Yeah, I almost go so far as to say we need to stop using that language. Because the consumer, the human out there, if you ask somebody what they think of as their Identity, I’ve had people in the street give me fantastic definitions. It’s my beliefs, and it’s my values. It’s who I am at the core, you know, it’s basically, you know, it’s not just even my gender, or my, you know, my name and my address and my family background. It’s much more fundamental than that. And I feel that by using the word identity within the technology space, when we really mean a credential, an ID or some sort of proof or token, we’ve kind of confused the conversation, so you’re almost the Identity belongs to the humans that are out there that you know Who will always own their Identity, but the ID piece. And it is a subtle difference in the credential the token that an organization needs to see, to be confident that they can trade or they can do business with, with the individual presenting it. And I have done some work with with a big organization here in the UK, recently, where that was very much, you know, what we were focusing on was looking at the language around Identity. So, for example, not talking about verification, because a customer doesn’t, or a human doesn’t want to be verified, they want to buy something, or get a new bank account or get a SIM card, what you know, they want to do something that requires a verification as part of the process. But they’re not interested in the word verification; what they’re interested in is being recognized. So we started to use much more of the language around recognition. So this solution, this service will recognize your customer, you know, you want to be recognized when you walk into a particular bank or log on to your online account; you don’t want to be verified. So it’s very subtle, but it is really important, I think, if we’re going to get the level of engagement that we need, right across the world, in all populations and all sectors, I think we do have to think about the language that we use in this area of technology, because other areas of technology, you can get away with it because it doesn’t touch the human so directly. But actually, we were talking about individual consumers who, you know, this is fundamental human rights stuff sometimes. So whether they have the right to vote, whether they can, you know, get an education, whether neither can get a vaccine, even you know that there’s going to be some really big issues that will come out of COVID, I think we have to be sure that that whole message or Identity as well understood by everybody.
Debbie Reynolds 11:48
So that’s great, I love it. Tell me what’s going on in the world now or that you see in a future that concerns you most in the identity area?
Karyn Bright 12:02
I think for me, it is the lack of consumer engagement. And I’m using consumer even that in itself is a very sort of business-oriented world. But you know, when we look at populations, where the needs are very different from one area to another, and there is, you know, we got very focused on ID verification, as something that was the finance to support financial services, basically, because it was stipulated in regulation that, you know, you have to do a KYC check or anti-money laundering checks on customers when they’re transferring money. And, and that is not the only need, you know, that some, some populations have. And I think the danger we’ll have in trying to create a level playing field. You know, if you look at the United Nations, you know, sustainability charter, they have stipulated that everyone should have a legal identity, every child should be born and get a legal identity by 2030. That’s fine, factually. But how do we do that, with a responsibility to the cultures, the values, and this is different society rules that we will need to work within this, it’s very easy, if there’s been a very good system that you just need to digitize, that’s fine, which, you know, for many, perhaps Western economies that can happen? But when you go to areas where certain tribes or certain peoples and minority groups have not been well identified in the past, just even through sort of traditional analog systems, you can’t digitize that. And that’s one of the big; it’s one of the big issues I was talking about with Dr. Eve Jayes de Kalai. He pays to collaborate recently for Women in Identity about the law of unintended consequences. When you try to impose a well-meaning very, you know, even well thought through a technological solution without understanding the full scale of the problems and the needs that the consumers have behind it. So I think there is a danger that the gap between those that can be verified or identified and therefore get access to products and services, including medicine, and the gap between that and people who still sit on the margins and aren’t able to actually be part of the new digital revolution for want of a better description. I think that’s going to widen unless we can really sit down and start to think about the real human issues that are set behind.
Debbie Reynolds 14:28
I agree with that. I think it’s time for us to talk about Women in Identity now. And it’s something that’s how we got to know each other. Yeah. So So talk to me about kind of your role at women in Identity, and then I can kind of chime in.
Karyn Bright 14:45
Sure. Yeah. Well, and as you well know, and probably many of the listeners on this podcast will know as well, Women in Identity was set up initially to be a networking group to support what was in the minority, i.e., Women in the technology industry where you typically you’d go to an event, and they’d be very few women. So, you know, we kind of wanted to create a networking space, just a be, you know, somewhere where people could go and connect with other women, and you know, perhaps feel less alone and in some of those big, big environments. So it was set up by Emma Lindley, Pam Dingle, and Colette Alessandro just over four years ago, I think now. And I suppose about two years ago; I got involved, I’d worked with some of the team before. And it was very clear that the story was evolving very much away from being just about another networking group for women, or more that actually did become the voice for the underrepresented in the user and the consumer groups that technology and the identity solutions that were being produced, we’re trying to reach. So the brand story that I’ve been involved with and have helped to work on is very much less about networking, and more about being a campaigning voice, to make sure that the identity solutions that get produced in the sector work for everybody. And they will work for anyone regardless of what environment or whatever need. And of course, to do that, you need a more diverse workspace and working teams on the products that are coming out. Because for the majority of products, you look at any team, and you know, at best, there will be a culturally a very similar homogenous team working on it. More often than not, it will be white and males that are developing the solutions. But I had a situation a couple of years ago where I went in to talk to a CEO in California, and he was introducing me to all his team. And it looked on the face of it to be a very diverse team, lots of different cultural backgrounds, lots of different, you know, people of different ages, and, you know, male and female. But when I commented on that, he said, Don’t kid yourself, because basically everybody here has been to an Ivy League. Educational, you know, establishments, they’ve got a very similar educational background, there’s similar affluence, they are not diverse, really. And that’s one of the things he was looking to address. So. So it’s very easy to get waylaid just by looking on the surface and seeing, you know, a mix of men and women or different age groups or all the rest of it. But that whole thinking about representing the users and the sort of problems that users may have is something that women Identity, NIH is campaigning really hard on. And I think, you know, it’s a testament to all the great work they’ve been doing, how many sponsors they’ve got behind them, and organizations that I think are genuinely wanting to make a difference and to change the way we do things?
Debbie Reynolds 17:54
Absolutely. I love working with the organization, and I’m the Data Privacy officer for the organization globally. And so I’ve seen the growth that’s happening, you know, you guys support people, obviously, you have sponsors, but then also you have job boards, where people are really looking for that diversity of talent. And so yeah, great, you all have great content, I highly recommend that people go to the website, women identity that or when I and, and sign up, so it’s free to join, anyone can join, you don’t have to be a woman to join, we have a lot of advocates and supporters all over the world of you know, all different, you know, different backgrounds. And I think that’s what it really takes to your heart these types of initiatives.
Karyn Bright 18:43
Yeah, to have the right conversations and, and you very kindly took part in in a webinar for us last year, you know, looking at biometrics and issues that may affect privacy that will come out of the latest, you know, technologies and letters, speeches and facilities that are coming out of the identity product teams. And I think one of the things we’ve done really well and Women in Identity is to have those conversations with very different voices that might be traditionally found on a, you know, a normal conference platform. And in the days when you’d go along to a big industry event, and it would be the same male-dominated panels, the same speakers pretty much across the board, talking, again, talking very technologically and very technically about what was going on in the market. And I felt that the Woman in Identity’s done, as as you’ve seen and you’ve been part of, is to bring different voices into that and start talking about different issues, not just how the technology might work within a regulatory framework of X Y Zed.
Debbie Reynolds 19:48
Right? And I actually when I went to Amsterdam, Emma was the first person I met. I just happened to decide to go to her session, and I didn’t know anybody in Amsterdam. Invited me here, and we hit it off really well. Yeah, well, we first met, and you know, she was formerly at Visa, and she decided to start this organization. Her presentation blew me away, really. Because this was in 2019. And she was one of the first people I ever heard talk at a conference about bias.
Karyn Bright 20:24
Exactly, exactly, exactly. And why not? You know, why? Why haven’t we been talking about that for years?
Debbie Reynolds 20:30
Right, and just the way that it bias can impact identity systems, because you, you are building systems that handle data of humans, and if humans of all different walks of life, can’t engage with your product, that is a problem, right?
Karyn Bright 20:53
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just about the data. You know, we’ve got challenges for people who are very data-poor, you know, who don’t have, you know, huge data histories or credit histories. But there’s also the whole process in which you want to identify people, and you’re putting them through a process that kind of culturally or just practically doesn’t work for them, you know, making, you know, I used to say this, when I was working with teams in London, and about products, they would be designing there, that would have perhaps what we call an exception process that would allow them to fall back into a manual process by going into a local office or a local bank branch or something that doesn’t work in rural parts of the country, you just looked at that product purely from the perspective of the 10 million people who live in London, but not for the other 40 or 50 million who may be affected, but not have the same ability and the same opportunity to be able to engage with a product simply because of the way you’ve engineered that the process around it. So I think there’s the data is really fundamental to Identity, but there’s also the way we in which we identify, identify people. And sometimes we don’t always think about people who don’t live in the same way as we do.
Debbie Reynolds 22:09
Right? I would love for you to tell the story. So Women in Identity produced a video, and it’s staggering to really see it, and I try to tell people to look at as much as possible, which is, you all told a story about...
Karyn Bright 22:27
A transgender woman Yeah. Verbene. Yeah,
Debbie Reynolds 22:32
Right. Just that just the story of having trouble banking was was staggering. She just couldn’t believe it. Tell me a little bit about this story.
Karyn Bright 22:41
She’s upset. She actually identifies as she, so we’re very respectful, you know, calling her she. But yeah, and she’s only one of many stories; we’ve actually got quite a few more videos coming out over the coming months because we’ve been doing a project to understand what has been the impact of identity exclusion for certain types of people would be at a trend, you know, transgender, be it somebody who lives in a particularly rural part of the country and doesn’t have access maybe to the support that you would get in a large city, and looking at, you know, people with thin credit background, so the data is not there to, to identify them easily. And all of these stories have come together. We’ve done research in Ghana, we’ve done research in the UK, so looking at two very different markets to see, you know, what are the common difficulties and the common challenges that underrepresented people can have when they’re trying to identify themselves in order to get access to other financial products or government services, whatever it may be. So it’s actually part of a wider project, this the human impact of identity exclusion, and actually, what we’re really hoping will be the final output. These are just stories along the way to illustrate the extent of the problem. The output that we want to achieve is a code of conduct for the industry, by which we’ll have the identity providers, the identity solution, and systems manufacturers actually sign up to agree to build their products going forward in a much more robust, diverse and inclusive manner. So thinking about those people like Verbene, and some of the others that we’ve interviewed thinking about, what would it be like for people who are not like me, you know, and the only way you can answer that question is by having those people either in your team or certainly alongside your team. So we’re hoping to bring that all together. It’s being led by Louise Maynard-Atem may not who’s one of the great, great women in Identity working alongside Emma and some of the others, and they’re basically at the moment I think they’re looking still looking for other partners to work within the in this next second spheres of it. But yeah, the ultimate output will be a code of conduct to which organizations will sign up, and a set of guiding principles, which will actually be a practical framework to help organizations overcome some of these issues, and just prod teams to think about the underrepresented think about the people you don’t normally think about. So it’s all very well to do these projects and highlight the problems. I think that’s been done many times. What we haven’t got as an industry is, well, what do I do about it? How do I actually cope with this challenge? How do I overcome it? So that’s what we’re seeking to do as women Identity. And look, I can follow us for more details over the coming months. But ultimately, it will be a code of conduct and the framework that organizations can actually use to make the situation better. Yeah. What so that, that that example with a transgender woman, it was centered around banking, her having problems, you know, having the proper ID having the proper credentials, so to speak, but because, you know, it identifies as a woman and maybe not look like their photo when they were born or something like that. Yeah, I think she had five different identities such that Well, I say IDs, I would say in my language, she had five forms of ID that she had to carry around with her all the time, because, depending on what the organization was matching against, it might have been pre her transition it might have, so she may have looked more like a man, it would have been, you know, just photographically didn’t look the same. She had a different name on some of the IDs. And she had to carry all of these so that no matter which eventuality, you know, she was kind of covered and she could get through, but yeah, an absolute nightmare, even just trying to send small amounts of money through the web, just was an absolute nightmare. And aside from the frustration and the terror challenge of just like any of us would have when the system doesn’t quite work, there’s the emotional stress for somebody who’s already going or has gone through a very, you know, a very difficult time and, and has made some very big decisions about their personal Identity, to have that constantly challenged to have that constantly brought up and questioned is really difficult. And again, that’s, that’s where I often say, you know, Identity is not about technology. It’s a social science. And we have to look at what we do in Identity as it is a science and a social science. And we almost linked to philosophy not linked to well, and the system says you’re called Joe Bloggs. That’s a very British name, but yeah, it just, you know, Mr. Smith, therefore, if you’re if your card doesn’t say, Mr. Smith, then you’re not Mr. Smith, you know, regardless of who you see yourself as and how you choose to identify yourself. And I think that is one of the big, big challenges for the industry.
Debbie Reynolds 27:56
Let’s talk about the digital divide. So the digital divide is a huge problem. So we know that he spoke about earlier, not everyone in our traditional identity system, you know, it is, you know, the world is, is very digitized. Now, you know, everything now, people want to have a digitized. So, for me, I’m concerned about people. For example, if you don’t have a smartphone, if you don’t have a smartphone, there are certain things you can’t participate in, in digital life. Right. And not everyone has a smartphone. I think the statistic I saw recently, and the most recent one is that smartphone 45% of people in the world have smartphones. And obviously, some economies have more people, you know, some have less Yeah. But it’s, you know, I think a lot of times we’re creating some of these things, they assume, okay, everyone has a smartphone, and no, not even a majority of people. Have you? Yes. So how do we, how do we, you know, I feel like we have an identity, you guys are doing tremendous work. And it’s an important service that you’re doing that because you’re highlighting maybe people who aren’t, who don’t have access in need. But yeah, but tell me a little bit about this kind of challenge of the digital divide.
Karyn Bright 29:16
Well, I think, firstly, you’re bang on to actually highlight that it exists. I think there’s, you know, again, that sort of bias that we those that work in the western economies and is sort of in the northern hemisphere. It’s like yeah, you know, that’s, that’s a problem. Everybody’s got one or has access to one, you know, and it’s so far from the truth invite them even more shocking, I think as we did some research in the UK and you know, right, about 24% of people didn’t have a driving license or a passport. So they have the classic IDs that would be used as part of a verification process that wasn’t available to big nearly a quarter of the population. And it hadn’t been factored into anybody, you know, who was designing a system. So I think that divide is only going to get bigger unless we change the way we work as an industry. Because the technology gets smarter that, you know, I was doing something today, I didn’t even have to put a password in, it just kind of looked at me and let me through the gates of my smartphone. And you know, that that’s getting, we were all about quickness and efficiency and letting you know, getting on with the job as quickly as possible. But actually, culturally, there’s a lot of people who don’t want to operate; that isn’t their value system; it’s not about getting things done quickly and efficiently. But have they got access to the core systems and core services and products that they’re, they’re entitled to that, you know, to even just bring it to start to level things up a little bit. I do fear that that divide is getting wider and wider, and I think it was something that COVID really threw up. And we’re seeing the kind of the repercussions of it now with the vaccination program, you know, the gap between those that are vaccinated, it’s nearly a metaphor for the whole identity thing, isn’t it, you know, that the gap between those are vaccinated on having boosters already, and those that have never even had the first vaccine is huge. And I think, you know, unless, and unless we start to think differently about how we do Identity, I fear that divide will get wider. One of the things, you know, I’ve been talking about recently is that we cannot afford as a sector to be competitive anymore, you know, this is not should not be in by being competitive, we have to be collaborative because there is no silver bullet that will address the problems that meet the needs of a relatively affluent person in the western economy. And somebody who’s sitting on the margins, in perhaps, you know, a culturally non-digitized identity system. And we’ve seen some of the, you know, the issues that have happened in Kenya, Dominican Republic, even the Aadhaar scheme, and in India were, you know, trying to do a one size fits all, just did not work. And I think, for me, the answer would be actually forgetting about, you know, trying to compete with one another, in different ways, and get ahead on the latest piece of technology and the latest, snazzy facial recognition versus, you know, assumption of analog process, and just look at Identity as a social science, and how do we support that, for everybody with different mixes of solutions, depending on the culture, the values and the development of the local population?
Debbie Reynolds 32:44
You know, I think another challenge, I think, in my Identity is that maybe it’s not an identity, maybe it’s just the way technology is made. So when you let’s say you have a company that creates a product for just general commercial use, so all they’re really thinking about is who their customer is. But when you let’s say you take that same tech technology, and they try to use it for like a government use. So let’s say you’re a phone maker. Let’s say Apple closely mimics cell phones and computers or whatever. So their customers are people who can afford to buy their products or use our services. But let’s say an Apple-developed app or developed something where they were creating a system for like the State of New York, right? So not everyone in the State of New York uses Apple products, right? But then you would have this huge gap because you have to find a way to create the service for everybody. So where were you mentioned that the Aadhaar system in India, and so that just gave me that is sort of triggered? This thought with me about covering people who aren’t your traditional customer? So I think, trying to transfer something that’s kind of in a traditional consumer market into something that’s maybe that that your customers, everybody, you know, so how do you have a challenge if everybody is your customer?
Karyn Bright 34:17
Absolutely. And I’ve had product teams say, Well, you know, we’re only interested in our product, and actually making sure that that works for the customers we’ve identified or the 80% of the customers that we’ll be able to use it. But it kind of goes back, and this is my own personal view, just but it does come back to that point that this is a very human issue. And there is a moral, I think moral responsibility, whether that’s with the government agencies that are implementing it or the banks that are implementing it, to not stop at the core market segments that they have identified. They can make the most profit from it has to be high. Do we cover everybody and it will be a smorgasbord of having different solutions that can work together, some will work together for this product for this population. For those that don’t have smartphones, or for those who can’t have access to particular kinds of digital services, then we offer a different route that is made up of different ways that fit for them. But ultimately, the goal is to be able to verify everybody. I mean, we all agree that’s what needs to be done. It’s just at the moment that we’ve got very carried away with the technology. So technology has tended to lead us in well; we can do it for 80%. So we’re not worried about the other 20%. And they’ve done a great selling job and selling into the big organizations. I can remember back in the very earliest days of electronic ID, all we were worried about was match rates; you know, how many people could be matched? Was it 80%? Was it 90%? And it was a numbers game, you know, it was actually nice. I hope we will be looking at it okay, so what are we doing about the 15 or the 10 or 15% of people that we can’t match? What’s the solution to get them through? They don’t have smartphones, or they don’t live within easy access of a, you know, a supporting officer agency, or they don’t have an analog identity that we can just easily convert to digital. So I think, I think, I hope, and I hope some of the work that women Identity is doing well actually transition that conversation away from just thinking about how many people can I see? And that’s good enough. And I forget about the rest, too. Okay, so who’s picking up the rest? You know, and then not being seen as the kind of the throwaways nobody really wants to have, you know, because you can’t make money out of them. And I think it’s some, and there is a responsibility, I do think it’s a moral responsibility to be saying, right, so what are we doing about those people? How did they need to be served? What are they comfortable with? Do they speak our language? Or do we need to be thinking about this in a different way? I’ve talked to groups in the north of England, where many of the women migrant population, so first-generation, don’t speak English. And the women will typically defer to sons or nephews, or husbands to do anything with regards to their Identity. So, which was okay for a while. But now, when you start to think about things like vaccines and making sure that they've signed up for all the benefits and entitlements that they should have, it can become a little bit more difficult, but nobody’s kind of thinking about well, alright, well, how do we deal with them? And what system do we need to set up to support them in a way that they feel comfortable with when there’s a lot of skepticism and fear and concerns about, you know, big brother privacy issues, and just understanding what the data is being used for?
Debbie Reynolds 37:49
Right, let’s talk about the tie between Identity and privacy. So definitely linked there. You know, I feel like some just Developer Groups in general, because they’re so focused on their products. A lot of times, they’re like, well, let’s, let’s do this cool product. And we think it’s so awesome. And then think about privacy later. And we know that that just doesn’t work.
Karyn Bright 38:15
And then you just shoot yourself in the foot. Because basically, the consumer knows that their issues and that their, you know, their data is being misused, and then just kind of undermines everything everyone’s trying to do.
Debbie Reynolds 38:26
Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, and I work with developer groups a lot. And I work with them on kind of how they’re trying to implement certain systems that you have to think about privacy as a fundamental building block in your tool. Because if you don’t, it’s going to create barriers to the adoption of your product.
Karyn Bright 38:49
Absolutely. And it’s a classic thing, rather than, you know, just taking a load of data and building it into the product and then saying, Okay, how can I verify this data? It’s really thinking about what is the user trying to do and what do you need to ask him for, and the classic one that we quote is if you want to know, if this person is entitled to buy alcohol, you don’t need their date of birth. You know you don’t need to ask them for the date of birth. You just need to know, somebody is vouching for the fact that they’re over. 18. So there’s a different way that we need to think about how do we confirm this person’s over 18 Other than simply saying, Please give me your date of birth? You know, so it’s, it’s, it’s thinking creatively. And I think traditionally because we’ve tended to just go well, that’s the way we used to do it. Let’s see your driving license, let’s see your passport. And then and if you haven’t got either of those, we’ll do something slightly different is to actually unpick the whole thing and say, well, actually, all I need is I don’t need to see this person’s name. I don’t need to see their, you know, their address. I don’t need to see their date of birth. I just need to see some way that I can verify this person in front of me is the person presenting the ID, and I need it to be verified that they’re over 18 by some, either some higher body or some other trusted partner. But I think it’s it’s thinking that way because the privacy then becomes something that’s inherent in the way you’ve built the system and thinking about how that user thinks about Identity and what they may or may not be comfortable with sharing. Rather than just saying, Sorry, my system needs to know all of this data, right?
Debbie Reynolds 40:31
So they know. Yeah, well, that leads me to the topic of friction. So friction, and how people traverse all these systems. So I think the and I don’t agree with this. So I think the classical way of thinking is okay; now that we have all these priors, regulations, and stuff, let’s create more barriers. For people to access these were, I think it needs to be the opposite. So I think it needs to be, you know, you can create systems that can achieve these goals and also reduce the amount of friction that it takes for people to access systems.
Karyn Bright 41:16
Absolutely. And I think it’s back to if you do genuinely think user or customer first, and you’ll very quickly work out what you need and what you don’t need. And I’m really, you know, hopeful that the woman identity work that’s going on, you know, we’ll start to highlight some of that, you know, the things that you don’t actually need to ask for if you’re doing a particular type of application development. Why, you know, why ask for all of that data? Is it’s something that the user would be uncomfortable with? Work? What’s the minimum you need to get through whatever process is? And if it’s regulatory, then, you know, obviously, there are certain parameters that you’ve got to work within. But I think it’s thinking differently and actually working right back to what does the user need to, for me to sell safely or to offer this benefit? Or is this product sent safely to the person who’s asking for it? And give them access? What actually do I need to know? And it’s going, you know, as I say, go back to that example, employee, I don’t need to know their date of birth, I need to know they’re over 18, or over 21? In the US, so I think it’s, yeah, and that’s where having the diverse teams comes in because somebody will come left a field, if you’ve got people in that team who think differently different age groups, somebody will ask the question, why do we have to ask for the date of birth? And I think, you know, that’s, that’s another great argument for having broader thinking and more diverse teams, that just step outside, sometimes income problems slightly differently.
Debbie Reynolds 42:55
Yeah, what is your biggest concern with privacy right now in the world?
Karyn Bright 43:01
I think it’s; I think my biggest personal concern is that it just isn’t working. You know, and it’s been undermined. Because actually, I used to talk about this quite a lot, privacy in the old world, the physical world wars, I can lock all my belongings up and keep them safe around me, and I can release and share or open my door to whoever, and whenever I choose, and I was very much in control. Online, I think, you know, it’s, we haven’t worked out how to do that. And we give all the users all the control as they had in the old world, then you’ve got issues around identity theft, identity fraud, and we know all of the stuff that goes on around that. And I think, I think the way we need to look at it in the new world of digital services and digitization is thinking about, you know, how are you going to use my data, so I may not be able to have control the way I you know, have been used to in the past. But if I can be assured that you are going to use the right in, my data is going to be accurate. And you’re going to use only the most up-to-date, and I can see what data you hold on me if it’s transparent how you’re using my data on where, you know, you need to use certain bits of pieces of information. And more to the point, you’re going to use it in a way that’s relevant to me, so that that sort of triangle of accuracy, transparency, and relevancy if I can see all of those are being respected. I think I can cede control. And that’s the new world of privacy as it used to be, isn’t what privacy online is. And I think we’ve got to sort of think differently about how we define it. For me, I think it is if I know you’ve got accurate information about me if I know can see how you’re using it and more the point is going to be relevant and to my benefit in the way that you’re using it, then I see it much more willingly than simply, you know, handing over data, which is what happens when I feel like countless forms online and elsewhere. I don’t really know where the data is going. Low and behold, I bought something for a Christmas present for somebody the other day, and suddenly, I’ve had, you know, an email every day from that organization promoting other things. And I know I didn’t take a box that said, please do not promote the hell out of everything else you sell. And so, and that’s just that, again, that that just undermines that whole thing. I, you know, I want to shop with you, but I did not give you permission to keep sending me information. Or at least if I did, it wasn’t very transparent. Where I was supposed to take. So I think yeah, it answers your question. The Long Way Round? My biggest concern was privacy. That’s the whole thing’s not working.
Debbie Reynolds 45:58
Yeah. So so on that what would be your wish? So everywhere in the world, according to Karen, and we did everything? What would be your wish for privacy anywhere in the world? Whether it be technology human? Yeah, anything?
Karyn Bright 46:17
I think I think it would be that people would understand why it’s important. And that comes back to the whole piece; that idea is understanding Identity. It’s telling the story better. Its consumers, you know, being concerned about their privacy, you know, you know, the way we would have been in the 1950s or by, you know, people looking at our gardens or, or, you know, maybe that’s a very western thing, I don’t know. And that that that would be interesting to explore, I think as well, is that the same issue when you live in large communities, where people, you know, have a certain degree of communal living and interactivity. But I still maintain that people still like to have their own material world and their own kind of piece of the world. And we have to respect that. Perhaps, you know, privacy for certain populations may be viewed in a slightly different way. So I think, you know, we need to understand what privacy really means nowadays, and we need to be looking at it from all aspects and all different populations because I think they would also be a danger. And I’ve nearly fallen into it myself, of just assuming that we privacy, the way we view in the Western world and the way we live in a very independent and fairly, you know, self-centric way. Let’s face it. I wonder if that needs to be explored to make sure that we’ve actually included all attitudes to privacy in all cultures.
Debbie Reynolds 47:48
Wow, that’s a blockbuster answer.
Karyn Bright 47:52
Come back to me in that one. You can work that one.
Debbie Reynolds 47:58
Very good. Very good. Well, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure to do this.
Karyn Bright 48:03
It’s been a joy chatting with you.
Debbie Reynolds 48:04
Yeah, this is great. And we will continue our other collaboration. I think this is great. I think people need to know a lot more about, like, what you’re building, but I’m telling this story is vital.
Karyn Bright 48:19
Absolutely. No, thanks, Debbie. You look after yourself. Thank you so much. Take care. Thanks again.