Ensuring the privacy of customer information will still remain a critical factor for public acceptance of any process that involves personal information.
Unisys says that organisations will need to continue to balance the mix of security, privacy and convenience in the services they offer.
"In today's climate, consumer confidence is the new currency, and convenience is now a major factor in that confidence," said Mike Webber, Manager Enterprise Security for Unisys Asia Pacific,
Customer experience critical
"People accept the need for, and in fact want, protection offered through effective security processes." Webber said. "But now they also demand a better experience -- faster, easier and less cumbersome. But more convenient processes must still ensure privacy - loss of personal information can irreparably damage a customer's trust.
"Whether it be faster processing of travelers at airports, more confidently verifying an internet or phone banking customer's identity, or providing access to your services in more customer friendly ways, we believe the focus in 2009 will be on putting the consumer first."
Unisys 2009 security predictions
1. The roll-out of identity verification solutions, that capture iris and facial images from a distance, to speed up security checkpoints, for better customer experience, where large numbers of people move through a bottleneck such as immigration control.
Unisys is working with governments and organisations to pilot a biometric approach, called "Iris On the Move" to take iris images at a greater distance and wider field of view, by finding the face of a person as they move at a normal walking pace
"'Iris On the Move' improves the time it takes to verify an individual against a list of pre-enrolled people," said Webber. "At an airport it can speed up the security process by as much as four times, meaning that up to 30 people per minute can potentially pass through a security checkpoint depending on the level of interactive checks done."
According to the latest Unisys Security Index 29 per cent per cent of Malaysians, 23 per cent of Hong Kongers and 69 per cent of Australians would be happy to give banks, government or other trusted organisations their iris pattern, in order to enhance security and protect against identity theft.
"Our research indicates that residents in the Asia Pacific nations strongly support new technologies that provide greater security," said Webber.
2. More intelligent security solutions will be developed that combine information from multiple sources to proactively make informed decisions about security.
"To date companies have been slow to combine the security data they have at hand and analyse it in order to make timely and informed security decisions," Webber said.
"However, technological advancements will make it possible to combine disparate pools of information. For example, higher resolution CCTV cameras, coupled with intelligent video software linked to facial recognition systems, will allow facial images captured in the footage to be compared against image databases such as a list of 'people of interest'.
"Another example is in the workplace where we are seeing more sophisticated identity and access management systems which allow organisations to manage user access to company resources and customer information that go beyond basic user ID and password access."
3. Organisations will shift from securing systems to securing information to take into account the 'human factor'.
Until recently organisations and their auditors considered strong network and system security was adequate protection for company and consumer information. High capacity miniature storage devices such as USB sticks are now commonly available and are capable of storing entire databases, customer's personal details, or sensitive commercial data. As a result, many organisations have had the security of their data compromised -- both intentionally and accidentally -- in spite of strong system security.
"Organisations now need to secure information regardless of where it resides or what file format it is in. Unisys expects to see further development and adaptation of existing technologies that will ensure sensitive data is identified and is strongly protected from the first time it is written to a file," Webber said. "Only individuals who can properly authenticate themselves as being entitled to access that information will be able to open the file or see its contents, regardless of where that file resides explained.
"However, a holistic approach to data security needs to take into account the human factor. Many data security compromises are accidental. Organisations need to define, implement and enforce stronger business procedures around taking data outside the organisation. If you simply don't enable data to be saved on CDs and sent in the mail, you take away the risk of losing it in the mail."
Unisys predicts that, in 2009, consumers will continue to demand that organisations provide secure systems necessitating a holistic approach to secure all touch points -- addressing technology, people and business processes. But consumer acceptance and take-up of these processes will be driven by improving the end-user experience.