Meet Ingenico

1. What is the mission and vision of Ingenico? 

Ingenico’s mission is to bring the same level of security, privacy and trust to the identity market that is found in today’s payment industry. Ingenico envisions a future where a single point of interaction can enable both an identity confirmation and payment approval.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets? 

A trustworthy digital identity is critical for all markets, both emerging and mature, as it provides a recognized authentication step in the path towards secure digital interactions between consumers and merchants.

Once trust between merchant and consumer is established, the resulting transactions are both seamless and personalized. Ecommerce, selling of controlled substances, home delivery and even loyalty can be enabled to a greater degree of sophistication once identity has been established.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does Ingenico address challenges associated with this transformation?

A robust digital identity can transform the Canadian and global economy to the benefit of all. The most noticeable impact will be in reducing ecommerce fraud, identity theft and healthcare fraud. In addition, governments will not have to carry the cost burden associated with the creation and maintenance of expensive physical identity cards.

Ingenico is well positioned to be a leader during this transformation. Ingenico has already participated in the digitization of an entire industry as a key contributor during Canada’s move towards a cashless society. The experiences and lessons we learned through that process can help ease the transformation that digital identity will go through in the coming years.

4.  What role does Canada have to play as a leader in the space?

Canada is well positioned to see the transformation of identity into a digital format. Canadians are digitally savvy, willing to accept new trends and have the necessary infrastructure in place to promote such a transformation. In fact, Canada is currently ranked the most cashless society in the world. This is a key indicator confirming that Canadians will quickly adopt additional digital transformations nationally. The existence of DIACC itself, with such diverse membership between public and private organizations, is a testament to the leadership Canada is providing the industry globally.   

5. Why did Ingenico join the DIACC?

There are numerous synergies between the Identity and Payments industry. A fraudulent breach in either market automatically removes trust from the marketplace. If digital identity is not trusted, it will not be used.

It took decades for the payment industry to develop this consumer trust and we believe Ingenico can bring our experiences as a trusted point of interaction to the DIACC community.

DIACC is poised to shape the future of the identity industry in Canada and beyond. Ingenico wants to ensure that our expertise with both security and privacy, across a massive global footprint of trusted points of digital interaction, is shared with the membership.

6.  What else should we know about Ingenico?

Ingenico has been a leader in the payment industry for more than 38 years, empowering commerce across any channel whether it is online, in-store or mobile.  In Canada, Ingenico has a large majority of the Canadian terminal market share and an ever-growing share of the Canadian ecommerce market. Our secure points of interaction are used by Canadians every moment of every day and will be an ideal launch pad for digital identity usage.

Ingenico is also a major player in Identity in Europe. Ingenico’s Healthcare and eID vertical is already on its fourth generation of hardware supporting pharmacy, healthcare and secured public sector work stations in France and Germany. Our identity solutions, experience and expertise can help fast track DIACC’s mandate.

Meet Quartech

1. What is the mission and vision of Quartech? 

Our mission is to make our clients successful. We do this by attracting the brightest and most capable innovative people who will create clarity, drive innovation, and deliver excellence

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity crucial for existing and emerging markets? 

Privacy and identity are at the core of the next generation of our digital lives.  Our customers, clients and citizens are demanding privacy. An interoperable digital identity that offers verifiable claims, creates a trust fabric that will make possible improved and streamlined ways of interacting in the markets as well as increasing privacy while retaining that verifiable identity.  Digital identity will give the citizens back control over their personal information and drastically reduce identity theft and other vulnerabilities brought on by our digital experiences so far. Digital identity is a key enabler for a more efficient and private future online.  Finally, digital identity empowers the customer with a means to conduct business in a way that protects privacy without compromising access to services. For example, a person can now verify their age without sharing their birthdate or any other personal information. 

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy?  How does Quartech address challenges associated with this transformation?

A digital identity trust framework across Canada will allow for an unprecedented level of efficiency and economy when conducting everyday transactions online. With digital identity and a trust framework, transactions can be achieved efficiently and cost-effectively and with minimal necessary personal information. The Canadian and global economy will benefit from the removal of barriers and latency associated with traditional identity verification methods that slow commerce, delay money flow and hinder the economy. With a decentralized and standards-based identity solution, a new set of experiences will emerge that empowers users and organizations to have greater control over their data – all while delivering higher quality services with a higher degree of trust and security.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in this space? 

In many ways, Canada is a leader in this space. In BC, the inception of the BC Services Card and its digital identity capability is a first step towards creating a trusted and verifiable Digital Identity and trusted identity-based economy.  The next step is decentralization and the creation of a standards-based trust fabric.  Quartech, with its involvement in the Verifiable Organization Network project and its implementation of Hyperledger Indy, helps place Canada in the leading edge of this trusted identity space. The next step is decentralization of our digital identity following a self-sovereign identity model for use not only for access to government services in person and online but access to services outside of government where verifiable, privately managed digital identity is an enabler.

5. What else should we know about Quartech? 

Quartech Systems is an award-winning technology and business consulting firm with offices in Vancouver and Victoria, BC.  Our clients are predominantly public sector, including crown corporations within BC.  One of our most relevant recent projects includes our development team working on Verifiable Organizations Network project, a self-sovereign identity blockchain identity project to manage verifiable claims for organizations.

Meet iComply Investor Services 

Meet Gambit

1. What is the mission and vision of Gambit Group of Companies?

Make the world a safer place by offering innovative, efficient, and easy-to-use biometric solutions, while providing renowned customer service.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

It can allow much more online activity if you can really trust someone’s identity, thereby making various transactions more convenient and safer for all citizens.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does Gambit address challenges associated with this transformation? 

It can eliminate the need to rely as much on physical documents that in themselves can be forged or become unreliable. It can allow data to be shared in ways that are safe while at the same time making things more flexible and convenient.

We are addressing the challenges associated with this change by providing solutions related to biometrics that can be used as part of many digital identify use cases. We are also working to integrate with other Digital Identity partners to enhance our current product offerings.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in the space?

Canada needs to:

• Set the policies on sharing of data and privacy for all of its citizens
• Help guide the Digital Identity standards in this area
• Ensure proper security controls are in place and Cyber Threats reduced
• Make sure procurement processes are agile
• Have an identity strategy this includes Government of Canada employees

5. What else should we know about Gambit?

We are leaders in the Canadian biometrics space with significant experience working with the RCMP, the Policing Community and other government departments on biometric initiatives and the related standards.

Meet Payments Canada

1. What is the mission and vision of Payments Canada?

Payments Canada ensures that financial transactions in Canada are carried out safely and securely each day. Payments Canada underpins the Canadian financial system and economy by owning and operating Canada’s payment clearing and settlement infrastructure, including associated systems, bylaws, rules and standards.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

Secure payments absolutely depend upon secure digital identity and authentication. This is becoming increasingly important as the array of payment methods expand at the point-of-sale and e-commerce environments for consumers and businesses. As new players enter the fintech space and offer services traditionally performed by financial institutions and faster payment solutions, finding identity and authentication solutions that remain secure while minimizing consumer friction will be crucial.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does Payments Canada address challenges associated with this transformation? 

Payments are the backbone of economic activity. More efficient, faster and secure payment processes help to spur economic activity by facilitating consumption, reducing costs and freeing resources. Modern digital identity and authentication are critical components of efficient and secure payment processes for Canadian and global transactions, particularly as cross-border commerce and trade grow.

Payments Canada works closely with its members, stakeholders and the public to develop mechanisms, policies and rules that support efficient and secure payment transactions. It is vital that rules are in place to ensure that relying parties have a clear understanding of their role in safeguarding identity and authentication procedures. At the same time, digital identity and authentication is much bigger than just payments, which is why Payments Canada is working with the financial services industry and organizations like DIACC to ensure our understanding aligns with wider efforts.

4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in the space?

Canada has many advantages in the digital identity space. End-user demand is high for ubiquitous and low-friction access to digital services and information. We also have a highly-evolved financial infrastructure and cybersecurity methods to balance end-user demand with secure identity and authentication. Canada also possesses rich clusters of technical and academic capability to identify and implement novel solutions to identity management.

In financial services, these factors are particularly pronounced and the industry is evolving quickly to offer easier service with the security of multi-factor authentication, biometric identification, advanced fraud detection and tokenization of sensitive information. The regulatory environment in financial services is also quite stringent with regards to Know-Your-Client (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and Terrorist Financing (TF) identity-related  processes and reporting requirements. Canada will be harnessing these factors to develop world-leading identity management and authentication processes in the coming years and will likely assume a leadership role in this area.

5. What else should we know about Payments Canada?

In 2017, Payments Canada cleared and settled over 7.5 billion transactions totaling over $50 trillion or about $200 billion each business day. We are critical to the efficient functioning of the Canadian economy and our Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) and Automated Clearing and Settlement System (ACSS) are designated by the Bank of Canada as systemically important payment systems (SIPS) and prominent payments systems (PPS) respectively. 

Payments Canada is leading a multi-year industry program to modernize the infrastructure, rules and standards that underpin payments in Canada. These improvements will strengthen our resilience, align with international standards and create a platform for innovation, enabling new and exciting ways for Canadians to pay for goods and services, transfer funds and exchange data about their payments.

Meet 1Kosmos BlockID

1. What is the vision and mission of 1Kosmos BlockID?

Our mission is to revolutionize identity management by enabling people and companies to escape from the legacy systems of paper-based documents and move into a true digital identity with unprecedented privacy, security, transparency, and individual rights by leveraging the power of blockchain technology. 

BlockID by 1Kosmos enables people to store their identity data – their driver’s license, passport, credit or debit cards, insurance cards, employee ID, professional or educational credentials, and more – in a secure digital identity safe way on their own mobile devices, and provide it easily to those who need to access and validate it.

BlockID eliminates usernames and passwords, which can be hacked or stolen. Instead, it allows people to use their face, voice or fingerprint to access online services such as banking or email. More importantly, BlockID puts people in control of their own identity data by allowing them to determine what information is shared and with whom it’s shared.

2. Why is trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets?

Today user identities exist in many different forms including:

1. Physical identities in the form of unstructured data, taking the form of images and photocopies
2. Multiple logins on multiple sites
3. Biometrics and Internet of Things (IoT)

One of the objectives is to combine these identities into a single, portable, digital identity based on the following principles:

Control – A user must have control of their identity information – controlling who can modify it, and authorizing who can see it and what they can see. They should be able to withhold or approve access as owner of their own identity information.

Transparency and Persistence – Users must have access to their own data and be able to easily verify and consent on how their data is used with no hidden data and no gatekeepers. All user actions and authorizations must be captured on an immutable ledger to maintain transparency and security.

Portability and Interoperability – Information and services about the identity must be transportable and available across international boundaries / third party services without a single vendor locking in or storing user data in a central database. A BCIAM solution is not completely decentralized if the architecture allows part of the user identity to be stored by a singular third party, even if it’s a trusted entity that is expected to work in the best interest of the user. Being part of a centralized service raises the question of vendor lock in and security issues that have been plaguing traditional siloed IAM solutions.

Protection – The rights and privacy of the user are to be protected. The information stored should never be available for consumption by any party without the consent of the user managing their identity.

3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does 1Kosmos BlockID address challenges associated with this transformation?

The two greatest obstacles to developing secure web services are verifying the user’s identity and securing their identity data.

Today, businesses and governments rely largely on paper-based documents, which can’t easily be used for online services, or usernames and passwords, which are easily hacked or stolen. Every service provider must build and maintain its own siloed identity management system – a costly and inefficient practice. Protections on these systems are wildly inconsistent, ranging from strong to barely existent. Users have little or no control over their own identity data, which is essentially owned by the dozens of services a user interacts with that collect and store it. The identity data itself can be full of inaccuracies, inconsistencies or outdated information because there are dozens or even hundreds of copies and no single authoritative source of the truth.

BlockID removes these obstacles. It eliminates the need for each service provider to validate or store user credentials, and uses the power of blockchain technology to help eliminate fraud and ensure the validity and accuracy of the user’s identity information.

The user’s identity information is first independently verified by trusted third parties, then encrypted and stored on the public blockchain as well as in a secure, digital wallet on the user’s mobile device. The data is encrypted using a public key; only the holder of the corresponding private key can decrypt it – and therefore only the holder of the private key can be the credential’s true owner. Because the encrypted identity data on the public blockchain is immutable – that is, it can’t be modified after the fact – it’s guaranteed to be authentic and accurate, and no single business or government entity controls it.

This can transform the Canadian economy – and indeed the global economy – by creating a universally recognized trusted digital ID that enables businesses and governments to securely identify users, helping to eliminate fraud (for both business and consumers), eliminate “fake” accounts, and protect the privacy of users. It can speed identify verification, allowing businesses to comply with Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements in seconds rather than days or weeks – all without having to implement costly and redundant identity management systems or inefficient manual processes to handle the task.

4. What else should we know about 1Kosmos BlockID?

Since forming 1Kosmos in 2016, we have added some of the leading minds in identity management on our staff and board of advisors. We have multiple financial and telecommunications customers using our solution, and analysts have called the BlockID Solution the most complete solution in digital portable identity.