Something I’ve been passionate about for some time is the need to have better identity and security management on our digital devices. This comes from 2 key angles from my perspective as a user – convenience and security.

The mess the industry is in today was highlighted overnight when I was trying to make a transaction for £40 on Paypal as a result of an eBay purchase. My Paypal account has about £100 in it, so no issue with funds. The problem here is that Paypal has detected that I’ve made the payment from an Indonesian address and thus the security engine assumes it is fraudulent. I got a message asking me to login and change my password, that’s fine. Then later I discover that isn’t sufficient and my account access is no limited. I log back in to understand what I need to do:

Looks positive so far, just click ‘Resolve’:

I think I’ll confirm location, as I don’t want to send documents. I could use my camera to take a pic of my passport, woops that’s older than 6 months old. Damn, I forgot to bring those copies of bank statements on holiday with me ! Next click:

Fantastic ! I’m out of the UK and the only option I have is to call a landline. Damn and I forgot to put the call divert on a landline to a mobile.

Result: totally paralised until I get back to the UK, what an utter joke. Oh, and unlike a bank there doesn’t seem to be anyone I can call !