‘Trust’ guarantees the legitimacy of the individual Demonstrating social value to become the source of DX

Jun Omori

Managing Director

Deloitte Tohmatsu Cyber LLC

“Since the pandemic, both the everyday life of consumers and the corporate IT environment have changed greatly. Everyday life has become dependent on the internet and digital, while corporate IT is adapting to the cloud and remote work. In this digitalized world, the importance of ‘trust’ is rising.”

So spoke Jun Omori of Deloitte Tohmatsu Cyber. Mr. Omori explained that “trust indicates the confidence that someone will protect social expectations, value, and earned returns.” He pointed out that as consumers and corporations turn toward digital, making the activities of society, individuals and corporations into digital activities, trust becomes important not just in one direction, from companies or government toward consumers, but in both directions.

Mr. Omori observed that when thinking about two-way trust in the digital world, particular attention must be paid to “people” trust.

“Is that someone who actually exists?” “Is it someone who is really employed at this company in this position?” “What information can this person access?” “Is this person really this person?” It is “people” trust that indicates such matters. The danger is that if someone succeeds in impersonating another person, using a service without being detected, they can cause serious harm, such as using the other person’s bank account or leaking personal information. In providing digital services, people trust is essential for determining if a person can be identified with confidence.

Important in this regard is “digital identity.” This is something that faithfully represents in the digital world a person in the real world, and is essential for enabling the use of government or private services, or access to information in a company, for example. “As the business environment grows more complex even while greater speed is demanded, proper management of digital identity is absolutely essential for guaranteeing security when granting people or robots appropriate information access or authority,” said Mr. Omori.

For example, in realizing work styles with freedom to choose work times and places, security must be focused not on things like terminals or networks, which change, but on things that do not change.

Mr. Omori stressed, “As the world is changing greatly, it is necessary to focus on identity in thinking about security.” The result will be that work duties can be performed more quickly, while guaranteeing security in diverse environments.

This approach of focusing on digital identity in security, and further adding response to the situation and to risks, is the “zero trust” that is essential in talking about security today. In access to information resources, for example, by always verifying trust in the identity and access situation, information can be protected from access by people other than the authorized users.

In this way, digital identity is indispensable to digital activities, and can also be called the source of digital transformation (DX). Mr. Omori noted that “companies engaging in ‘identity governance,’ for guaranteeing the certainty of identity, are on the increase.”

In wide use today are digital identities issued in companies or by giant service companies. Making use of governance in the issuance and management, the certainty of digital identities is guaranteed. At the same time, however, there are moves aiming for a world in which identity does not belong to the place of work or company providing services, but belongs only to each individual as their sovereign right.

Omori expressed the view that, “Going forward, the nature of identity will change. To ensure that when this happens, companies do not end up in a situation where users no longer choose their services, or companies do not violate laws, they will have to pay attention to digital trust and identity.”

Deloitte Tohmatsu Group

https://www2.deloitte.com/jp/en.html

‘Trust’ guarantees the legitimacy of the individual Demonstrating social value to become the source of DX

Digital identity indicates trust of the individual’s activities

Identity is to be respected as the individual’s possession

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