Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity said, “As a digital society, we are facing a privacy reckoning and a crisis of confidence — and we’ll see it come to a head in 2021.

The level of data collection by tech companies has reached a new peak, and consumers are losing faith in service providers’ ability to manage their data respectfully.  2021 will be the year that consumers demand more control of their personal data and how it’s used and shared.

The identity security industry, specifically, will evolve to address this demand with new ‘personal identity’ frameworks that give consumers control over their identities and which attributes to share with service providers. By allowing people to pick and choose specific data and identity attributes to share with apps, and giving them the capability to validate their identity without revealing more than necessary, we’ll put an end to the status quo of giving up excessive amounts of personal data to do basic tasks in our everyday lives.”

Emma Maslen, is the VP & GM of EMEA & APAC, at Ping Identity, she says that the biggest lesson she can see from 2020 is the need that employees need to be enabled for a greater level of remote working support in the future. "What this year has shown is that companies need to be agile with their strategies to ensure business keeps moving in uncertain times, with no disruption to service for employees and customers."

"I see a couple of challenges descending on us for the future which Ping can really address." she continues.

"The first is where we work. The pandemic has created a greater dependence on home working, whilst we may have some employees who return to the office in the future - some employees are now enjoying the reduction in commuter, more family meal times and greater flexibility in the working day which I think they will be reluctant to let go in the future. Ensuring our employees are enabled to work from home, in a productive way, will be a big theme for the future?

Why that is, brings me to a second point - the war on talent. This war continues. As the world is disrupted, employees are looking for visions, missions which resonate and working environments which empower employees to do their best. Frictionless access to tech will ensure reductions in frustrations and attract and keep the best talent.

Identity is going to be a big consumer focus in the future. Not only are we working from home more - we are shopping from home more. Users/consumers are bombarded with username and password requests, identity challenges and a friction-ful experience which results in high basket abandonment to our besieged retailers. For companies to ensure their maximum share of wallet they must replace legacy experiences and disrupt their environments. The frictionless experience for consumers will drive loyalty and a larger share of wallet. Those focusing on those challenges will be the winners of 2021, certainly in retail, insurance, banking and many other sectors."

Interestingly Emma Maslen does not think we are yet seeing the sort of fines expected as a result of GDPR. "The intent was good by the regulators, the risk is real for consumers and customers, and yet we are not seeing that many public exposes or fines."

"Finally, cyber security inherently carries a negative connotation. But there are so many positives. If we think about what cyber security enables..... frictionless online experience = greater baskets completed = higher revenues = greater customer spend / loyalty..." concludes Maslen.