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Dreaming about future interaction
Sim D'Hertefelt, 12 November 1999

By dreaming about future interactive systems, we'll be better equipped to adapt new technologies to the needs of people and businesses. An example, "the future of personal identification", illustrates the possibilities of future visions.

Future Visions
A future vision is a story about the way people will work, live and do business with interactive systems in the future.

Unlike science fiction, does not start from technological dreams about the future. Instead, it starts from current or predicted needs of businesses and people and tries to picture interactive technologies that will answer these needs.

We're running way behind technological developments when we think about how current technologies, such as e-business, will change our way of living, working and doing business. It is time we start imagining how our lives, our work and our businesses can be improved by the interactive systems of the future.
We spend so much time on adapting to new technologies and trends that we forget to ask ourselves where we want to go. By dreaming about future interactive systems, we'll be better equipped to adapt technology to the needs of people and businesses.

An example: "Who are you? The future of personal identification"
The following example illustrates the possibilities of future visions.

  The situation
Here's a simple exercise: take out your wallet and make an inventory of the contents. Here's mine:
  • money
  • 2 bank cards
  • 2 credit cards
  • 1 membership card for the video rental shop around the corner
  • my ACM membership card, a Post It note with my on-line account password attached to it
  • 2 health insurance cards
  • blood group card
  • vaccination card
  • a card with all my bank account numbers and my bank manager's number
  • Belgian national identity card
  • 2 fitness club membership cards
  • a corporate travel card for high speed European trains
  • driving license
  • a card with the European euro conversion rates
  • a card for public transport in Brussels
Forget about the cards you've stored in a drawer somewhere. When you really need those, you'll have to ask for a new one.

Now look at the Post It notes attached to your monitor and make a list of all the passwords written on them. Then add all the passwords and codes you have stored in other secure places. Here's mine:
  • user name and password to start my computer and log onto the company network
  • corporate intranet user name and password
  • several user names and passwords for project web sites
  • ACM on-line account user name and password
  • e-mail for life alias user name and password
  • free personal web e-mail account user name and password
  • an on-line journal user name and password
  • internet-banking user name and password
  • administrator user name and password for my web space
  • 2 e-mail account user names and passwords
  • the code I need to get a new car key when I lose mine
  • the code I need to get a new front panel for my car radio when I lose mine
  • the code to access my mobile phone voice mail from an ordinary phone
I didn't include the user names and passwords I received when buying things on-line or registering myself on web sites. If I go there again, I'll have to go through the cumbersome registration process again.

Now, make a list of all the codes you have memorized, because someone told you not to write them down. Here I go again:
  • a PIN code for each of my 2 bank cards
  • I forgot the PIN codes that allow me to get money from ATMs with my 2 credit cards
  • the access code for my mobile phone
  • the very long code to unblock my mobile phone when I have entered the wrong access code three times (I had to call the phone company for that one last week)
  • the code to switch the company alarm on and off (I try not to be the first to enter the building, not very difficult, nor the last to leave, more difficult)
  • the code to identify myself to the security people who call the company when I activate the alarm because I forgot the code to deactivate it (I have stored this one in a secure place)
  • the code to access my financial accounts through the phone
  • the code to deactivate the alarm on my girlfriends car (what was that again?)
  • the code to remotely access my answering machine
The need
All these codes, numbers, passwords, user names, cards... all this "stuff" serves only one purpose: prove to machines and the organizations behind them that I am who I am and that I'm entitled to certain services. But why do I have to do that over and over again, each time following different procedures, and with different "stuff" to remember or store in secure places?

There are limits to the storage capacity of people's secure places, not in the least their memory. Machines and organizations alike blame and punish the user for these limitations. When you're checking out in the super market and you just can't remember your bank card's PIN code, you're going home without food and with angry stares in your back from the line waiting behind you.
If these machines and organizations are providing services to me, why can't they provide me with the simple service of knowing who I am and what I am entitled to, without me having to provide them with the service of going through their cumbersome identification procedures?

The solution
Imagine banks would have to pay the supermarket bills of customers who forget their card code, they would install a user-friendly system tomorow.

And we don't need iris recognition or on-line DNA analysis to solve this challenge of personal identification.

Replacing the multitude of ID cards with one intelligent card would be a great improvement. Especially if that card could be plugged into PCs, phones, and other devices that need identification either locally or on-line. That way, it would not only replace the cards in my wallet, but also the user names and passwords I need on the internet.

Risks and bottlenecks
Security. I don't want people who steal my smart card to get away with my entire life. So until that magic iris recognition has become more popular, there might be a code associated to the card. I don't mind remembering ONE code if I can forget at the same time all the other codes, passwords, user names, counter-codes, and "stuff".

Privacy. When I use my card to identify myself, I don't want everybody to see my entire life. But no information has to be stored on the card, only something that identifies me as me. It's the responsibility of every organization and machine to remember what I am entitled to. In an on-line world, that information doesn't have to reside locally on the card.
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