Piyush Rajan, Asst Editor, Telematics Wire spoke to Jitender Sandhu, M2M Director, ASEAN & India, Gemalto on future of connected devices, cybersecurity and more. Jitender is the Head of ASEAN and India for Gemalto’s Machine-to-Machine (M2M) segment.
It is being predicted that in future out of all the connected devices there will be a few number of mobile devices, rest all the devices will be connected through M2M or embedded SIM. Comment.
Unlike the SIMs being used in mobile devices, it will not be possible to change the operators that easily in case of embedded SIMs. Although there are some solutions being developed for operators they have not reached the maturity level. The policy formation on the operator side is also missing.
As more and more devices get connected and the attack surface will increase and so will their vulnerability. How to tackle with this?
With the increased usage of M2M communication data vulnerability and security threat, both will increase. Even a very simple innocent looking data may have huge consequences if it goes into the wrong hands. Metering data, for instance, gives details of the usage pattern of the client which can be used in many ways. A lot of private and personal data can also be attached to simple data that may also be used in different ways. Gemalto takes care of data security right from the client device level to the server level. Every data in and data out port Gemalto has security solutions.
Recently there was an article in American bankers association that in future the connected car industry will in a way swallow banking industry. What are your views on that?
The banking industry and connected cars are two separate industries now but as they will get aligned the number of transactions will increase many folds and this will be a challenge for us. Right now things like online shopping etc are taking place which has changed the way transactions used to take place. But in connected cars where voice modulation etc will be used for user authentication, it will be a challenge. Securing the exchange of information and transactions is where the company like Gemalto will play an important role.
As things get more and more connected we will have new business models coming up. Would you like to mention some of these?
As we will have connected cars, we will also have connected homes etc where we will have different devices connected to each other. There may be business models based on repair, maintenance of devices. The devices may be able to send information about their usage and schedule themselves for repair and maintenance automatically. In monitoring of new energy sources like solar energy etc, we can have business models built around that. There also needs to be a defined roadmap for technology longevity so that the companies can design their products keeping this in their mind.
Connectivity is the prime requirement for the things like connected cars to be realized. In India we still there are many parts of the country where we do not have connectivity. How to deal with this issue?
There are many dark spots on the Indian Map, even in the urban areas the issues like call drops are witnessed. For this, the government should come up with a policy that puts a condition like connected data uptime should be 99.99%. Recently, TRAI had asked the operators to pay for the call drops which were not being accepted by them. The government should come up with norms which set high standards for service.
Technologically we are ready but the absence of policies for regulations is a hurdle. Comment.
Yes, the government is coming up with new telecom policy which might solve some of the important issues and will help in stabilizing things in the fragmented market. In other countries, they have defined guidelines for the devices being used and power consumed by devices. In low bandwidth connectivity, some times even when the service is denied the device keeps in sending connectivity requests which put the load on the network a clear guideline should also be there.
What are your views on the ownership of data? who owns the data?
Data being generated can be classified into Personal data, Vehicle data. The vehicle data can belong to OEMs and Personal data can belong to the user or the service provider depending upon the terms and conditions. There is some ambiguity regarding the right to privacy, eventually, things will get clarified.
