As the internet made its foray into virtually every segment of our lives – commerce, business, social and even personal – pundits across the world were quick to write the epitaph of brick-and-mortar businesses of all hues and all affiliations. Much of what was predicted has come true despite the humiliating dotcom crash and the ripples that emanated as an after effect of the same.

Never mind the deep rooted impact of internet on the global community; it still remains a fact that not all brick and mortar models die a gradual death, as was quite emphatically predicted. One needs to look a bit deeper to unravel the mystery – one which is related to the basic DNA of the business in question.

A number of businesses witnessed accelerated erosion of brick-and-mortar models – these ones largely being faceless businesses, as I call them. They either did not require the identity of the individuals transacting with internet or were not fundamentally linked to the verification of such identity.

On the other hand, there are businesses that indeed need a definitive ratification of the identity of the individual actually transacting. In their case, it is fundamental that an authenticated identity of the consumer be established before completing a transaction. As the context of commerce grew, such businesses adopted a number of authentication mechanisms which at best could not guarantee if the consumer was indeed the face behind the net transacting on his own behalf.

Take the example of a credit card payment, can an e-commerce portal ever be 100% sure that the person transacting with its site is definitely the person whose credit card he is using for transaction ?Couldn’t he simply be in possession of the credit card details? I think, in varying degrees, it is this apprehension on adequate security, that has limited the growth of true commerce and a wholesome switch from brick-and-mortar models.

Imagine this – if only there was an easy way to combine the reach of internet with the explicit, undeniable assurance of the face behind the net, wouldn’t internet go through a commerce and interaction explosion?

Amazingly, we are not far away from this reality – what seemed like a dream, is ready for a reality leap today. Applying biometric authentication can easily ensure – that while the net cannot see the person, the net is assured of the physical presence of the person doing the transaction.

Imagine if each Indian home was to have a small biometric device, capable of capturing his fingerprint – in some form connected to the Aadhaar Platform, performing identity authentication – then this could easily be linked to multiple commerce and social networking contexts on the internet. A device at home becoming the tool of identity on the internet, the “face” behind “faceless” internet !!

The biometric authentication would almost work as an IaaS (Identity as a service) and liberate the whole context of security on the net. I would be able to use Aadhaar Authentication security to secure access to my bank account, to my social networking sites and to the e-commerce portals, to name a few.

Isn’t this technology liberation, the biometric way ?