By the end of 2015, 50 percent of new retail customer identities will be based on social network identities, up from less than 5 percent today, according to Gartner, Inc. Along with federation technologies and mobile computing, social identity adoption will have a major impact on the practice of identity and access management (IAM) in 2013 and beyond.
“For an increasing number of Internet users, social networks are the Internet. Using ‘login with Facebook’ — or other popular social networks — reduces friction and therefore improves users’ experience of customer registration and subsequent login,” said Ant Allan, research vice president at Gartner. “For registration, the required personal information can be imported from users’ social profiles, reducing — if not eliminating — form filling. Moreover, using a social network identity means users don’t have to remember rarely used passwords or endure convoluted password reset processes when they forget them.”