The AOC, represented by Miquel Estapé, Deputy Director of Strategy and Innovation, took part in a seminar at the last Mobile World Congress where the worldwide initiative of Mobile Connect was presented, which aims to facilitate a secure and agile authentication mechanism. that can be used in the public and private sectors, to respond to current cybersecurity challenges and eliminate the risks of using passwords.
Two pilots were introduced during the seminar. One in the public sector, the use of Mobile Connect together with idCAT Mòbil, the AOC and three municipalities in Catalonia (Castellar del Vallès, Manlleu and Esparraguera) which must allow access to the personal folder and initiate municipal procedures. And a second, in the private sector, with the Catalan Association of Health Entities (ACES), to access medical reports and tests. You can consult it presentation by Miquel Estapé at the seminar.
MobileConnect is a global initiative of GSMA, an association that brings together the leading telecommunications operators, to offer an authentication system based on mobile devices. It is being implemented or is already being implemented in more than 21 countries and 34 operators. Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone are participating in Spain, which already has more than one million active users.
This mechanism works as a complement to the idCAT Mobile service. Citizen identification is done against the idCAT Mobile database, but in the authentication process, instead of sending single-use codes via SMS, it allows notifications to be sent to the mobile that must be accepted or rejected. This mechanism provides several advantages. First, it is an initiative that will provide synergies for public service and private service authentication systems. Second, it offers usability improvements so that notifications are accepted or rejected by clicking on a self-installed app on the mobile SIM by each operator, without user intervention. And third, the notification sent to the mobile is encrypted, which increases the level of security. The Mobile Connect service is already integrated into production with the services of the AOC Consortium and will soon be open to the citizens of the pilot's municipalities. The pilot phase is expected to last 6 months.
The AOC has also participated during the Mobile World Congress, represented by Miquel Estapé, in a round table on the implementation of Mobile Connect in Europe and eIDAS regulation, with the participation of Andrea Servida, responsible for digital governance projects of the European Commission, and the governments of Norway and Great Britain.
