Tom has asked me to research the following hypothesis: that if the best of breed uses of technology internationally arrived in the UK in a rush the UK’s infastructure for identity management and information security would crumble under the load. (If I’ve got this slightly wrong I’m hoping Tom will correct it.) In other words, we don’t even need new technologies to emerge to be blindsided badly; the ones the world already has could do it by themselves if deployed in the UK as they are in other cultures. (Of course, part of the reason they’re *not* already deployed in the UK is that cultures differ.)

The list of best of breeds Tom suggested so far:

Korean broadband usage

Japanese mobile telephony patterns

Scandinavian financial services-anywhere (any-device banking)

US logistical supply chain tracking via RFID (actually, I believe this is about evenly spread around the world - certainly the German company I interviewed last week that supplies RFID systems to automotive companies says all the major companies use it and they sell to all of the ones outside Japan)

US Web 2.0 (as political pressure and lobbying platform - information assurance questions, but also the unintended consequences of mash-ups)

One thing not on Tom’s list but that might be worth adding is the US’s data-sharing (governments/companies) - though it seems as though the UK already wants to copy this at least wrt student debt.

Anyone have more ideas for the list?

wg