Transparency and trust present biggest impacts to digital identity in 2020

The importance of transparency and trust will present the biggest changes and impacts relating to digital identity for New Zealanders in 2020, Digital Identity New Zealand (DINZ) says.

Andrew Weaver, the executive director of DINZ, says a major trend this year will be the continuing emergence of Kiwis organisations who are open and transparent in how they interact with their customers.

“Trust is one of the key issues facing digital identity as we move into the 2020s. We are currently operating in an environment of low trust, if not mistrust,” Weaver says. 

“The government is working on delivering a trust framework which will bring greater certainty to the New Zealand environment and will enable organisations to innovate and invest with greater confidence.

“We are increasingly seeing communities push back on invasive and murky methods of advertising and monetisation of personal information. 

“Tech companies are starting to realise that offering customers choice when it comes to privacy is no longer an optional extra, yet the lifeblood of those tech behemoths continues to be information and data that is generated by its customers. 

“This leads to some very interesting challenges when it comes to transparency of both information and money flows. Transparency is one of the key contributors to our ability to verify and is a precursor to meaningful trust.

“In Aotearoa, there is a growing awareness of the enabling potential of a well-designed digital identity framework, and this year, that awareness will start to translate into action. 

“We believe organisations that promote and respect individual and community information will be the success stories of the 2020s.

“2020 will see the emergence of collaborative solutions that will enable people to take control of their identity information and reduce the painful friction associated with many of our current online interactions,” Weaver says.

New Zealanders consider personal information or data in areas such as a driver’s licence or passport, transactions, contact details, names and addresses, employment details, online browsing, marital status, loyalty card usage, demographic details, photos and videos uploaded, date from apps, social media activity and posts and heritage and ancestry.

A total of 79 percent of New Zealanders are concerned about the protection of their identity and use of personal data by organisations, according to a Digital Identity New Zealand (DINZ) survey.