The Growing Number of Use Cases for Verifiable Credentials
Merritt Maxim of Forrester on the Hottest Emerging IAM Trends
Decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials that move digital identities away from centralized controllers are already being tried out in real-world situations, says Merritt Maxim, vice president and research director at Forrester.
Some organizations have already begun piloting verifiable credentials, which among other actions can glide individuals past gatekeeping restrictions such as age limitations without having to expose their underlying data, such as their birthdate.
Smartphone giant Apple is working with a handful of states to provide digitized driver's licenses that consumers can import into their Apple wallet for use as a form of credential for other tasks, Maxim says in a video interview with Information Security Media Group.
More entities and vendors are expected to test their proofs of concept in the year ahead, he says.
Meanwhile, the European Union has been working on EU identity frameworks with verifiable credentials in mind.
"There is a lot of interest around verifiable credentials and what that means from a user standpoint, particularly in giving the user more control of the user attributes and how they're shared and used, given ongoing privacy concerns. This is definitely a trend to look at in 2023 - both in adoption by vendors and end users."
In the video interview, Maxim also discusses:
- The unique identity and access management challenges in healthcare;
- Cloud versus on-premises IAM issues;
- Ways to get more out of existing IAM deployment capabilities.
Maxim leads a team of analysts at research and advisory firm Forrester. He has 20 years of experience in the IAM field, including previous roles at CA Technologies, Netegrity, Nuance, OpenPages, and RSA Security.
