D11.3: Economic aspects of mobility and identity

Title: CROSS-SECTOR COMMUNICATION

Communication directed to the public sector

In this chapter we typically have one-to-many (1:n) communication or communication of the one-to-one (1:1) type that has a public nature or aims at public recognition. Typical examples for these types of communication are public WAP or web-portals optimised for mobile access. These portals offer in addition to information services and marketing and sales information traditional internet services such as chat and blogs or new services such as photo galleries.

Two of the most successful mobile services or products in this section are SMS and ring tones. SMS in many cases seems not to be driven by usefulness and cost efficiency only, as with current prices for mobile communication SMS seems to be expensive compared to the content that can be transferred. For both products, recognition in public seems to be an influencing factor, when the service or the mobile device is used. They demonstrate that the success of this market segment is not driven by the technical or procedural usefulness only, but also by fashion. In markets that are driven by fashion the prognosis of mid- or long-term trends is very difficult, the economic risk when entering such markets are high for the vendors and service providers.

As the information in these communicational contexts is at least partially meant to be public, confidentiality is not always an important issue here. But integrity and availability can be important aspects of security nevertheless, as manipulation of information or non availability of services can have economic consequences for vendors and service providers (loss of customers for paid b2c services).  

The composition of the targeting group for 1:n communication has an impact on the need for privacy. Privacy can be an important issue in public communicational contexts especially in cases where persons are in a role as client of an organisation. In these contexts we can observe the use of a number of anonymising services in the internet. These services in principle can be used on mobile devices as well. In addition in numerous web fora the use of pseudonyms is very common.

Within the public area we also observe types of communication that are driven by the need for reputation and thus aim at identifiable creators of information and linkability of the publications under the same name (for example in scientific and technical communities). 

Business related and governmental sectors

The market for business to government (b2g) and government to business (g2b) solutions currently does not seem to be very well documented. One of the few well known approaches for these types of communications are in addition to simple mobile voice communication mobile electronic signature solutions that are established for example in Finland and Austria (A1 signature). Examples for applications for mobile signatures in these communicational contexts are portals of the public sector for placing of contracts.

Due to the secret nature of the information (for example trade secrets for bargains) or the personal nature of data transferred and processed, security and data protection are important for solutions in theses communicational contexts. In cases of signature based solutions, authenticity and non-repudiation are additional important aspects of integrity. The applied level of security and the corresponding technical and organisational measures are typically defined with the target able to insure against the remaining risks.  

Potentially the compliance to data protection legislation may be a unique selling proposition (USP) for this type of product and service. In this context privacy seals may be of relevance in the future. 

Communication emerging from the private sector

This kind of communication shows a big variety as we have one-to-one (1:1) communication to the business sector (customer to business, c2b) and the government (citizen to government, c2g) and the communication to the public sector already mentioned. 

Private enterprises as well as public institutions try to establish communicational contacts to customers or citizen via mobile portals. While we have numerous established business portals for mobile communication run by enterprises, the situation for mobile governmental services is different. In Germany we still observe a discussion on strategies, in Finland the infrastructure for mobile electronic signatures has been established in 2005 and is available for every citizen, though usage seems to increase slowly.

In these communicational contexts privacy is a driving force for security, especially confidentiality and integrity. Typically an individual user can accept a lower level of availability. In many cases individuals without an organisational context do not have the knowledge and currently do not seem to see the incentive to apply even basic security measures such as virus protection and secure configuration of external interfaces on their mobile devices. Practically speaking, the observed need for security and the implementation differ widely. An enhanced automated security management for mobile devices (including for example patch management and virus protection) and more secure default configurations of external interfaces could improve the situation significantly in the future.