Future of the Smartphone

[VulcanWerks]

Step 1: Merge the wallet and the smart phone. A wallet contains money, cards of all sorts, memberships, licenses, etc. They can all be transferred to the smart phone. There's no reason to carry around a physical wallet.

Step 2: Implant. 

Yes, there are hurdles, both technical, bureaucratic, and even moral issues such as privacy and security, but it will happen eventually and within our lifetimes. (Yours anyway. Not mine as I'm too old.)

To the first point, I already do that. All cards linked to wallet now. I started with one card to see how it went and honestly it’s infinitely more convenient and far more secure. You’d have to know my phone pass code and use facial recognition to get into my wallet. No losing cash, credit cards, etc. And if someone did get my phone I can just remote disable it.

Insurance cards are digital, too. People have concerns about privacy but privacy is an illusion. “They” identify people from birth and through their existence. If tptb want to find something out about me they already did.

I can conduct basically all of my personal business on my phone. Only thing that isn’t on there is a digital ID.

Now for biometrics/implants? I think we’ll see eye/palm scanning before chips get implanted at scale. I also question how secure that tech would be for payment - as an example. I already use Clear at the airport and have my facial recognition to log onto/validate identity on .gov sites. That seems reasonable. I just think palm scanning at scale has a lot of potential issues and would usher in a whole new set of concerns around “identity theft”.

Multi-factor authorization might get you around some of that but I still see potential issues.

I don’t have an issue with my phone/Clear/.gov having these scans of me. Again, if some nefarious actor or government wants that information they’ll get it with or without my consent. I also don’t really take that personally at all and frankly that kind of thing has been happening for a LONG time. I don’t plan on being a criminal so I see no issue with self-selected transparency.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a future where those who try and bypass technology are viewed negatively. It will be “anti-government” or criminals only. While many people who are “anti-government” certainly aren’t criminals they’ll be lumped into that bucket. Or at least, I could see that happening.

Lastly, this all plays into the “Social Credit Score” concerns. What I think is funny is that you already more-less have one and to think you don’t is kind of naive.

So, bank with JPM, use AMEX, put your various biomarkers into the database and carry on.

Many will disagree with me and that’s fine but you’re not just gaining efficiency/convenience with this path - you are also gaining various amounts of security, too because everyone else has to use it… including the bad actors.