What do the world's largest organisations think about decentralised identity?
There is some new market research out, and you should read it
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For the last wee while I’ve been working with the Decentralised ID team at Ping Identity. Specifically around their market research into the decentralised identity market.
They’ve just published a report about their research, and there are some really interesting findings to talk about.
But before we get to that, one of the most important things about this report is who has been surveyed.
Not end users. Not a specific country or sector. But large enterprises and governments all over the world.
And I mean large.
Ping spoke to 700 IT execs from the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore. Businesses with at least 500 employees and $100M in global revenue (the largest 50 companies surveyed each bring in over $10bn per year).
The takeaways? There are three things I want to point you to.
1. Many businesses are not managing ID risks effectively
First, big businesses feel they are in trouble when it comes to digital ID.
48% say they are not effectively managing today’s security and identity risks. These huge companies are spending $MM - say that loudly, $$$MILLIONS - to combat digital ID fraud. Yet half of those asked say that it’s not working.
Perhaps more worryingly, just under half of these IT decision-makers say they would not be able to spot a deepfake of their organisation’s CEO.
Wow, that’s something we need to fix, and fast.
Just think of the share-price affecting announcements that could be triggered with some viral video content.
We need to take a cold, hard look at how we manage digital identity today. A spider’s web of customer data APIs. Of 3rd party fraud checks. Of data verification, cleaning, sorting, storing, securing and insuring. There’s your $MM overhead right there.
The economics of digital ID is becoming untenable. And it’s all overhead. There’s little business value from these escalating business costs.
And guess what? AI is making it worse. Weekly. Hourly.
Have you seen the latest face- and voice-replica tools now available to anyone, anywhere … for free?
2. Decentralised ID can be a force for change
The second big takeaway makes me feel more optimistic though.
Because 99% of executives believe that Decentralised ID can be a force for digital improvement across the business.
Nearly all of them!
Everything from integrating more applications faster and enabling smarter customer data collection. To reducing customer journey abandonment and delivering better ‘omni-channel experiences’.
Meaning there’s a business case for digital wallets and credentials across a range of departments.
3. Decentralised ID will drive new digital growth
However, the third takeaway is perhaps the most important.
60% of business leaders - and remember these are some of the biggest organisations in the world - see Decentralised Identity as a driver for new digital growth, and for creating customer opportunities.
Using digital ID wallet tech as a strategic competitive advantage. It's not just a tactical fix, helping fix some of the holes in today’s ‘IAM’ and ‘CIAM’.
Here are some of the report’s other stats to chew on (together with my PoV)
97% of organisations are experiencing challenges with identity verification (as you’d expect - businesses are spending more and more on ID, yet, still fraud goes up and up)
54% are very concerned that AI technology will increase identity fraud (I’m surprised this isn’t 90+%, given how alarmingly good GenAI biometrics and digital twins are getting)
48% are not very confident they have technology in place to defend against AI attacks (this is a big one, as not only will hackers themselves use AI to target known customer weak points, but in the wrong hands (almost certainly already happening) AI will itself identify and attack new, unknown - and potentially not yet defended - ID weak points)
Only 45% say their organisation uses two-factor/multi-factor identification verification to protect against fraud (this, people, is why the stats above are a) obvious and b) terrifying)
41% expect cybercriminals' use of AI to significantly increase identity threats over the next year (‘significantly’ is doing the heavy lifting here, and in my view will be an understatement when we look back at these figures at the end of next year)
Only 38% have implemented a strategy to use decentralised ID as a protection against fraud for both customers and employees (clearly enterprises are on a journey, and authentication apps, digital wallets and portable credentials are all about one thing: putting data control in the hands of users to enable cheaper, faster, and smarter business processes).
But this isn't about decentralisation - it's about value
Let me highlight one last (and I think much-overlooked) point.
‘Decentralisation’ isn’t the goal.
Businesses are simply seeking out competitive advantages wherever they can. Both for cost efficiencies (lower ID verification costs, smart compliance and more customer services throughput for example) and for business growth (better conversion, faster onboarding and new revenue streams).
Decentralised identity does just that.
More secure data. More private data. Better digital connections between people and businesses.
And better customer outcomes.
Here’s the kicker: if a business starts to accept digital wallets and issue their own verifiable credentials, then guess where the customers are going to go?
To the brand that requests less customer data, looks after what data they do collect, and uses personal data in a smarter, more valuable, more secure and private way.
I deeply believe that we are fast approaching a Blockbuster/Netflix moment for digital ID.
So I’d encourage you to read the full Ping report. Some juicy stuff in there (including an exec summary by me).
There will be more to talk about in the coming weeks. And we will be digging into the report at the upcoming EIC conference in Berlin in early June (I’m speaking).
Until then, do let me know what you think about the survey, and head over to Ping Identity to find out more.
Thanks for reading this week’s edition.
Stay tuned for more Customer Futures soon, both here and over at LinkedIn.
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