At the 2013 Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) Annual Meeting and Expo in New Orleans recently, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Hacktivism titled Managing Risk for Online Threats and Hacktivism Actions. Attending these shows allows me to experience a little bit of local culture (the food and the venue were awesome), network with colleagues and learn about what is trending in the cloud space. I’m not surprised that the trending theme this year revolved around mobile technology.
We all know that more and more, summary knowledge of who we are and what we do is often contained in the device in our hand. According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, smartphone adoption has jumped from 35 percent in 2011 to 56 percent in 2013. Since there is no corresponding rise in computer use or card-present environments, this driver alone should account for the ascending desire for mobile payment technology.
Already, many people are using mobile payment technologies such as Dwolla, LevelUp, Starbucks’ mobile app, EMS+ just to name a few. These data should not suggest that all questions have been answered and mobile payment technology does not have inherent risks. We still have a long way to go but the genie is out of the bottle and as each generation steps up, we will need to offer ubiquitous and intuitive interfaces to use at work, at play, for social interactions and for commerce.
The challenge directly in front of us is in dealing with the multiple mobile platforms and preferences of people along with the, at times, cavalier attitude that some people take with their mobile device. Do you know someone that has lost their phone recently? Given all the data folks put on them, do you think they really controlled their data after the loss of the physical device?
Advancing technology will help us solve many of these issues but most importantly, we need to take control of our own data and our own digital personas in order to feel safe and secure.
Overall, the entire Meeting & Expo was a valuable experience. The Electronic Transactions Association is the must-join organization for anyone in the payments industry. The educational, networking and selling opportunities are unmatched and you have great learning opportunities.
I will be presenting a session on Big Cloud Usage at the Big Cloud Event, hosted by Big Cloud Sales on June 18th and Business-Critical Security and Compliance in the Cloud at the ACA 74th Annual Convention & Expo on July 15thin San Diego, CA. I hope to see you at one or both of these events.
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