A digital passport for connected objects

Will your items soon have their own identity card? The hypothesis is not as crazy as you might think, it is even already reality. “We are currently carrying out experiments in the United States to verify the identity of drones and their pilots. The identity of the person is verified when they file their flight plan with civil aviation. For the drone, verification consists of interrogating the device’s identity certificate, contained in an on-board chip. In fact, the principle of identification is the same for a person or for an object ”, explains Philippe Vallée, vice-president of identity and digital security at Thales.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also Biometrics, QR code, holograms… On the Internet, passwords will soon be forgotten

This activity is far from anecdotal. Millions of connected cars in circulation already incorporate many SIM cards that connect to remote maintenance, emergency calls, downloads, etc. The service must be able to authenticate the connected vehicle in order to identify it, locate it or verify its access rights. This authentication works on reciprocity, that is to say that the car must also be able to verify that the service to which it is connecting and which will download a new version of the software, for example, is indeed authorized to connect. . “Imagine what would happen if malware took control of your car at 130 km / h on the highway …”

Hologram or glitter

In addition to drones and cars, billions of connected objects must or will have to be authenticated by a digital identifier. The main means of authenticating objects is the digital certificate embedded in the object in question. These can be computer servers in a data center, surveillance cameras, monitoring devices in a hospital department, thermostats, etc.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also In poor countries, digital identity as a solution against exclusion

“Authentication could also be done using a hologram or glitter marking, for particularly critical spare parts or for fine wines,” illustrates Franck Guigan, founder of the company Optic ID. In this case, a smartphone application would detect whether the coin or the bottle is who it claims. “