The operating group’s Chief Digital Officer announces agreements with techcos and institutions from around the world to expand the reach of Open Gateway APIs
At MWC Chema Alonso, CDO at Telefónica, has presented a session called Open collaboration to innovate. During the session he announced agreements with leading technology companies and institutions from around the world regarding Open Gateway APIs.
TikTok rocks on, slowly
Telefónica and TikTok are to extend their alliance to Europe with a new Age Verification API to identify underage users. During Alonso’s presentation, Cabify announced it will simplify the registration process for its users using the Number Verification API.
Their collaboration started during MWC 2024, when the two companies announced they would design a simpler, more secure onboarding process based on the Number Verification API. This solution will be launched in the first half of this year, and extended to “strategice” markets, starting with Brazil.
The Number Verification API means TikTok users can register for the app using their mobile phone number, without an an SMS or third-party verification system.
The newly announced Age Verification API, also within the CAMARA framework, will integrate functionalities from other solutions like Number Verification and know your customer to supplement TikTok’s existing age assurance and age confirmation measures to help ensure age-appropriate experiences.
Cabify to verify automatically
Alonso was joined on stage by Carlos Herrera Yagüe, CTO of Cabify to announce the latter will start using the Number Verification API in its registration processes so they can register directly, without having to receive an SMS or use another third-party verification system, which slows the process.
With this API, Cabify can offer users greater speed and security, because it can verify automatically that a user is interacting through a device that has a SIM card associated with a specific phone number.
Keep it in the community
Telefónica and the Community of Madrid have signed a cooperation agreement to facilitate the digitisation of public services such as health, transport, justice and tourism through the adoption of Open Gateway. This announcement was made with Miguel López-Valverde Argüeso, Councillor for Digitalisation of the Community of Madrid.
AWS for SaaS
Ishwar Parulkar, Chief Technologist for Telecom and Edge Cloud at Amazon Web Services, also took part in the session. With Alonso, he announced the joint creation of an innovation centre for new SaaS consumer products for telcos. The idea is to combine the strengths of cloud and telecoms networks.
The collaboration will be based on Telefónica’s experience in the management of telecoms data and algorithms to analyse this data and obtain anonymous, aggregated information from consumers to serve different verticals. AWS, for its part, will provide infrastructure and data storage, data governance and analytics services to enable the development of modern management platforms, generative AI applications and data analytics based on the cloud and adapted to telecoms data.
The companies say they aim to democratise access to technology by offering ‘plug and play’ platforms as SaaS products to companies around the world. The products emerging from the innovation centre will abstract companies from the complexity and cost of creating data services.
Google it
Alonso also announced an innovation centre with AWS for telecoms SaaS products based on Open Gateway APIs. Telefónica and Google Cloud will authenticate millions of developers through Open Gateway and Google Firebase APIs.
Achievements so far
During his speech Alsonso presented some of Telefónica’s achievements since the launch of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative at MWC in 2023. For example, Telefónica has already closed deals with more than 50 large companies around the world and is negotiating more contracts with companies interested in adopting Open Gateway APIs to improve the digital services they offer.
To gain greater momentum, Telefónica is supported by more than 20 commercial partners, and the number is rising, according to the operator.
