Security and the Internet of Things will be at the centre of the SIMalliance’s priorities for the year ahead, its Chairman has said, as the industry prepares for 5G.
Hervé Pierre, who is currently Embedded Software & Products (E&P) Senior Director, Strategy at Gemalto, made the comments after having been elected for his third year as chairman.
He said the SIM industry was facing several significant developments in the coming years, such as the ongoing definition of 5G and the proliferation of embedded SIMs.
He said: “While it is still early days for 5G, security and privacy will continue to be key requirements as the range of attack targets is likely to increase. However, it is inevitable that security requirements will vary significantly, according to individual use cases across multiple key segments, such as massive IoT, critical communications, mobile broadband and network operations.
“To support ongoing industry-wide 5G standardisation activities, SIMalliance will continue to lead efforts to define and assess diverse security requirements across various market segments, and recommend that security appropriate to relevant use cases is built into 5G standards from the outset.”
Pierre also noted the increasing prominence of eSIMs in consumer and M2M devices. He said this area was being transformed by remote SIM provisioning, which is changing production, logistics and business models.
[Read more: Embedded SIMs to dominate M2M connections by 2020, research predicts]
“To address this transformation, SIMalliance will continue to collaborate with industry stakeholders, to ensure that as the ecosystem expands and becomes more dynamic, it not only supports new business models, but also continues to place security at its very core,” Pierre said.