Eve Maler is the Chief Technology Officer at ForgeRock.
Eve is a globally recognized strategist, innovator, and communicator on digital identity, security, privacy, and consent, with a passion for fostering successful ecosystems and individual empowerment. She has 20 years of experience leading standards such as SAML and User-Managed Access and publishing research in the field, and has also served as a Forrester Research security and risk analyst. As CTO, she is responsible for the Labs team investigating and prototyping innovative approaches to solving customers’ identity challenges, along with driving ForgeRock’s industry standards leadership. She hopes her duties still leave time to contribute to the rock ‘n’ roll outfit ZZ Auth and the Love Tokens.
I had the opportunity to interview Eve recently. Here are some of the highlights of that interview:
Jill Griffin: So Eve, how did you get to be chief technology officer? My readers will be really interested in the path to that high-profile position
Eve Maler: I joined ForgeRock as a member of the office of the CTO, and over the years I served in several standards development positions. I have developed some of the important standards that underlie interoperable digital identity, which ForgeRock implements. The first was SAML, the Security Assertion Markup Language, which is foundational to many of the single sign-on (SSO) protocols computers speak. The second standard I developed was XML, the Extensible Markup Language, which is all the angle brackets you see on screens in movies. So, I’m kind of a wonk from way back.
Griffin: Did you always want to be in technology?
Maler: Yes. And that passion really predates my professional story. I started working during the summers in college for the company Software Arts, which developed the first spreadsheets — they gave me my first terminal to use, and I flew out of that place and started skipping! My career started as a software editor, editing software documentation. I enjoyed that work, but I still had a bent for technology and actually taking part in its development. As a result, I crept into the standards world and I loved it.
Griffin: Did you major in technology in college?
Maler: No, I majored in linguistics, the study of natural language and its structure, not computer linguistics, which is a large major now. So, when analyzing natural languages, you see patterns in them. The same concept applies to how you design standards — you’re making new languages. This leads us, now, to designing protocols that computers use to speak to each other to achieve interoperability. These protocols are especially important in digital identity so users can, as, I like to say, “fling personal data across the internet safely and securely.” These days, they are essential for identity to work, from single sign-on features, also known as SSO, to authentication and authorization between two systems. Developing effective communication is, in a sense, what we do all day long and standards are really the underpinning of that.
Griffin: I can see how linguistics would ultimately lead you into the technology world. Recently, I received my second COVID-19 shot and with it they gave me a card that shows proof of two vaccinations. My sister told me I shouldn’t be carrying it around because I lose things, so I took a picture of it, and keep it in my safe instead. With that, there’s a lot of talk about “vaccine passports,” however, I’m hearing that a lot of politicians don’t want that. Can you tell me how you view that and the base for it?
Maler: Many people in the world have been latching on to this notion of a vaccine passport as a pandemic panacea — as the thing that’s going to save us. The hope is that we can return to some form of normality using some indication of vaccination, and we’re starting to see that come to fruition to an extent. For example, New York is starting to roll out this Excelsior Pass, and Rutgers University has a solution for stadium access. So, the question of “are they going to exist?” is not applicable anymore. However, as these solutions become more pervasive, it will be important that we’re collectively thinking about vaccine passports in a unified way. It will be critical that we incorporate the necessary security and privacy with equity in a way that people will trust and in a way that gives people choice. It is difficult to hit all those marks.
Griffin: I think the word “choice” is very important here. For example, I got my vaccine at a grocery store here in Texas at H-E-B, and to do so I had to travel to get it. I know I’m in H-E-B’s database but I don’t know that I’m comfortable with anything that would have a national or international platform. So respond to that for me?
Maler: COVID has pushed life to become more digital than ever. Many companies already had digital transformation efforts in place, and that work has only accelerated.
At ForgeRock, we know a lot about digital transformation and helping companies become more digital in a safe and secure way. We like to say that we help people “safely and simply access the connected world.” In the last year, many operations relied on digital aspects because people were sheltering in place — even visits to the bank and grocery store became digitized. To go fully digital, people had to get online, sign up for a new account, create a new digital identity, which all leads to sharing personal information with an increasing number of businesses.
At the enterprise level, how do you accomplish this kind of access in a way that is “interoperable” with all the systems in use? Realistically, it’s incredibly difficult. You might even say it’s tantamount to an intractable problem or nearly impossible. When looking at the privacy regulations we’ve seen go into place in the last 10 years, Europe has enacted GDPR, California implemented CCPA, and in Latin America, Brazil has LGPD. The common feature of each of these regulations is increasing the ability of individuals to consent, control their consent, and withdraw their consent around how their data and identity is being used. It’s giving more power to people, or “digital subjects.” Digital subjects used to be these passive entities to whom things happened and now these regulations are giving people agency.
Griffin: Let me ask you one final question, what do you think the future will look like when you look ahead? How would you describe the future?
Maler: In a future where it seems like COVID may continue to be a part of our lives, I think we’re going to see a vaccine passport marketplace with different choices. We’ll see some vaccine passports, and others that are being referred to as “credentials.” We’re going to see some places adopting them, while others choose not to.
There’s no question in my mind that we’re going to see digital transformation continue to accelerate across businesses, which will have a more sophisticated digital presence. There’s also no question in my mind they're going to have to keep ratcheting up consent management tools as businesses face people and individuals who want more autonomy in managing their data. Security has to be higher, the user experience has to be higher, the trust they engender in people has to be higher. This means businesses are going to have to think hard about what they’re asking for, whether that be medical information or other personal data.
There’s a phrase that we like to use at ForgeRock which is, “democratizing data control.” This means everybody can choose what they share. It is obvious from the last year that demand for privacy, consent, and security is not wavering, and consumers shouldn’t have to compromise.
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