Mobility Rules on Steroids!

Anyone who cannot see the writing on the wall about where electronic identity is going, needs to have a look at this morning’s announcement from Google.

Google announced on Monday that it would acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the cellphone business that was split from Motorola, for $40 a share in cash, or $12.5 billion.

The offer — by far Google’s largest acquisition — represents a premium of 63 percent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday. Motorola is a Google Android partner.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said in a statement: “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

The competition to own the most important information and transaction platform of the 21st century is well underway and in spite of what I believe to be the financial service industry’s attempts to keep the telecom’s at bay e.g. the rapid rise and fall of ISIS (see AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Developing Mobile Payment Platform and Wireless carriers cancel their plans for ISIS ), they will not succeed with the Googles of the world.

It is far more likely that internet generation companies like Google and eBay, or the next generation of such, or Apple which proven leadership in the arena of human machine interaction and has such once again redefined itself to be a leading edge tech innovator, will define and own electronic identity based platforms and the hefty revenue they will generate.

Let the games begin!

EU End to Passport Free Travel Big Boost for ABC?

The latest news form Europe is that passport free travel across the Schengen area may be a thing of the past.  In response to the influx of Arab spring’s  flood of refugees, “European interior ministers agree to ‘radical revision’ of Schengen amid fears of a flood of migrants from north Africa“.

The extremely scary part of this development is that it is being driven by a “resurgent Europhobic far right across the EU”.  Yikes.

In a serious blow to one of the cornerstones of a united, integrated Europe, EU interior ministers embarked on a radical revision of the passport-free travel regime known as the Schengen system to allow the 26 participating governments to restore border controls.

The border-free region embraces more than 400m people in 22 EU countries, as well as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland. It extends from Portugal to Russia’s borders on the Baltic, and from Reykjavik to Turkey’s border with Greece.

The move to curb freedom of travel came as the extreme nationalist right, which is increasingly influencing policy across Europe, chalked up a notable victory in Denmark, which announced it would unilaterally re-erect controls on its borders with Germany and Sweden

So, while I am somewhat chilled by the motivation, it would seem Automated Border Control processes at air, land and sea ports for people, and personal and commercial vehicles will be critical to minimize the impact of these measures on cross border facilitation.

I would imagine (and hope) that some of this “Europhobic” hysteria will be tempered over the next few months and years, though in the short term it will likely provide a boost to the industry.

We must, however, be very careful as an industry NOT to be seen as a vehicle for the expression of right wing politics. The consequences of  becoming embroiled in the midst of an idealogical struggle will not only be detrimental to the industry but will be a major set back  for the work that has been done to  promote electronic identity as  a path to the preservation and even expansion of privacy and civil liberties.

Cheers,
Maxine

Mobility Rules at the NDIA Biometrics Conference

I participated on the Futures panel at the NDIA  Biometric Conference in Washington DC on Thursday.  The topic of my spiel “Mobility Rules“. Though I always strive to interject original, if not somewhat provocative, perspective (especially when crystal ball gazing), I was quite surprised, and pleasantly at that, at how enthusiastically this perspective was received. Particularly as I was at an event targeting the defense arena. Read the rest of this entry »