Editorial

 

 

We are delighted to start a new decade celebrating the two we spent together with you from the founding of our magazine in 2000.

Since the turn of the millennium, we joined minds as the digital revolution unfolded, selecting fresh topics to debate and new angles to consider. We succeeded in focusing on facts that mattered, with scientifically grounded, technologically rooted opinions that could contribute to the multi-disciplinary talks about the digital transformation of our society. Together, we pushed boundaries going beyond mainstream thinking and unanimously accepted viewpoints. We also gave space to those that would spark controversy, inviting a readership of experts and decision makers to consider different elements which seemed worthy of inclusion on our radar screen.

Whatever it was, we covered it – whether it was RFID being technically viable at an item level in mainstream distribution and retail, or rethinking digital IDs as a derivative of machine readable travel documents for transport security and not a by-product of any homeland security frenzy – not to mention biometrics-supported corridors for legal migration even before the emergencies of today’s cross-border movements. Many, if not all, of these have been extensively investigated and challenged on these pages as well as during the events we organized to extend debate in a live dimension.

But towards the end of the two decades we spent in your company, it became evident that more needs to be said about the efforts needed to wipe misinformation from the radar screen not only of our community, but of all citizens of the digital society. They are the ones who, today in the era of Artificial Intelligence, represent the hyper-connected global audience of the communications and information engine that our generation strived to develop in a meaningful and sustainable way.

So now the offspring of those core auto-ID technologies have reached maturity with a new generation emerging: AI, block chain, big data, machine learning, 5G and the Internet of Things, to pick a few. New issues now need to be addressed with once again scientifically grounded solutions for tackling current crises, threats and developments. The applications are coming fast and furious – from battling climate change, increasing finance transparency and controlling misinformation to regulating the use of big data and attaining government-set sustainable development goals for century 21.

The collective effort we have sustained for 20 years is therefore still vital to progress as our publications demonstrate with up to the minute comment, analysis, review, news and debate on all these bright young, new ID technologies which are fulfilling the need to keep the world and our pages turning.

Sophie Boyer de la Giroday