Human-centric identity is coming: Ping Identity and Okta

Human-centric identity will be ubiquitous within five years according to Andre Durand, CEO at Ping Identity. 

Durand told Digital Nation Australia that human-centric identity will provide individuals with more control over their interactions online, with just one unique identity as opposed to unique passwords with every company. 

“We graduate from a scenario where all of our identity information sits with all the social networks who are selling it to advertisers where we have little control over how all of our interactions - which essentially represents our digital identity bits - are being shared,” said Durand. 

“In the new world we're going to put our identity information on our phone and hopefully train the world to come ask us for it rather than go ask some company for it.” 

Use cases for human-centric identity will appear over the next two to three years but it will take up to five years to make human-centric identity an industry standard with the way identity management infrastructure works, he said.

“We will see a bunch of small use cases initially, probably beginning with the notion that proof of our real identity is on our phone and from there it will grow. But most of the standards for this, and most of the underlying technology is here today,” said Durand. 

According to Phil Goldie, managing director at Okta ANZ, customer expectation for human-centric identity is already here. 

“From a citizen and an employee and a user's point of view, they see identity as being human-centric today. That's why it's so important and that's why the security aspects around it are so incredibly important,” said Goldie. 

Organisations are moving from identity being a project or a tool decision to a strategic decision he said. 

“They're thinking more holistically about ‘How do we think about identity end to end in the whole of our business?’ Employees, partners, third parties, customers, and customers’ customers, people are starting to think that way. That's the on-ramp, that's the enabler to start thinking about identity as a single human-centred technology experience that could traverse that.”