In Conversation with Gautam Hazari, CTO, Sekura.id

When you meet Gautam Hazari, the first thing that strikes you isn’t just his deep technical expertise, it's how effortlessly he weaves empathy into every conversation about digital identity. As the Chief Technology Officer at Sekura.id, Gautam has long championed a future where technology doesn’t just serve systems, but people, especially those most at risk of being left out. His philosophy is rooted in a simple yet powerful idea: identity is not a privilege; it’s a fundamental human right. From his TEDx talks to his global advocacy for passwordless systems, Gautam’s mission is as ambitious as it is personal, he wants to humanise the digital world, one innovation at a time.

In this candid conversation, we dive into the world of fraud prevention, AI ethics, and the ever-evolving role of mobile intelligence. Gautam shares the surprising origins of modern identity tech, the role telcos can play in reshaping trust online, and what a password-free future might look like. Whether he’s talking about Agentic AI or the role of the humble SIM card, Gautam brings a refreshing blend of technical depth and heart to some of the most urgent questions in digital security today. Let’s get into it.

You’ve spoken extensively about the humanisation of technology. In a world increasingly driven by automation and algorithms, how do you balance innovation with empathy, especially in the identity verification and fraud prevention space?

Believe it or not – fraud is one of the oldest businesses on the planet, the first recorded fraud was in 300 BC in Greece! Every incidence of fraud has human stories behind it, stories of agony, stories of pain and stories of loss in trust and even on humanity at times, and I have heard so many of the personal stories along the way that makes me relentless to look for solutions to prevent these human miseries. Identity must be a human right! It pains me that there are still around 850 million humans globally (as per the World Bank) who do not have any formal Identity. Humans without Identities are just statistics, and without digital identities – are excluded from the digital world – this is what drives me every single day to solve the Identity crisis of the digital world.

Innovation and empathy can and must go hand-in-hand. I keep the human impacts of any innovation in the forefront. Humanisation of technology is simple, it just needs honest intention to use it as an uncompromisable principle.

With SAFr (Sekura.id’s flagship mobile intelligence API platform) and the rise of mobile intelligence APIs, how do you see the relationship between telcos and traditional identity verification providers evolving over the next five years?

Security, Identity and fraud protection is best delivered through collaboration, the plurality works much better in this case delivering the 1 + 1 = 3 or 11 effect. Telcos and traditional identity verification providers and any other players in the space must collaborate to solve the Identity crisis of the digital world. In the post GenAI world – it is critical to realise that most static identity data is at risk of getting “generated” by trained ML models, there are trained ML models on sensor data from mobile devices to identify age-range and gender with acceptable accuracy, and that’s scary. This is where dynamic identity data; data which is temporal, data which changes with time and makes it difficult to be used to train ML models become much more useful, and this is where the data from telcos fit well. This is exactly what we are doing with our platform SAFr and also with the data we are using from the telcos, including a lot of ethical ML infrastructure.

You’ve been a pioneer in mobile identity since its inception. What has surprised you most in how the market and its challenges have evolved since you first launched Mobile Connect?

The Internet was not designed to Identify the humans, it was to identify computers – that’s why there are IP addresses, fortunately or unfortunately we humans do not have IP addresses (yet). What surprised me the most is that the solution to solve this identity crisis of the Internet has been there for the last three decades and still is not utilised much – it’s the SIM ! I always try to remind myself that “I” in SIM stands for Identity, it did stand for the same in 1991 when the technology was introduced and it still does the same when we are using the eSIMs. What has evolved now is – the realisation of this and it is getting there. I am very excited for the future – a future where passwords do not exist in our digital lives.

With AI and machine learning now playing a major role in fraud detection and behavioral analysis, how does Sekura.id ensure transparency and ethical use of AI in identity systems?

Sekura.id uses the privacy first and privacy by design as the key principles for every technology it builds and adapts. Machine learning is a great enabler for fraud management in the current era where the fraudsters are using the same technology to perform the frauds at an unimaginable scale. We at Sekura.id ensure that we do not store any personal data, the platforms we use are specifically designed to be stateless. The training of the ML models is performed on data which is not PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and also a lot of sanitisation of data is carried out to ensure privacy by design is intact.

The passwordless future is something you’ve championed. What are the critical dependencies that need to align - technological, behavioral, and regulatory - to make this vision a global reality?

Technology is the easiest dimension here; the technology has been there for decades. Regulations are evolving in many geographies to facilitate this but is slow as expected. It’s the behavioural aspect which is critical here – from both the businesses and the consumers; mostly bound with inertia. It’s strange that password is one of the oldest technologies we are still using – from 1961! And the most common passwords in use for the last 10 years is “123456” which can be cracked instantly!

The important aspect that the businesses need to realise that majority of the frauds in the digital world is related to “Identity” and not “security”, Identity is a “front door” problem whereas security is a “back door” problem, Identity is a human problem whereas security is a systems problem. For many years we have learnt how to secure the systems, but evolution has not given we humans the same security in our cognitive process and our vulnerability as humans is what is been manipulated by the fraudsters. Password is the first thing we should remove from our digital world!

With the GSMA Open Gateway initiative gaining traction, what role will telco-exposed APIs play in unlocking new identity use cases for consumers and businesses alike?

The momentum and traction in GSMA Open Gateway are very encouraging, and personally I am very excited to see the positivity around the Telcos and also the hyperscalers as this is what I have been constantly pushing for since I wrote the first specification of Mobile Connect in 2013 and has the potential to see my dream of the passwordless world and making the digital world much safer.

The use cases are not necessarily new – although more telcos are exposing the APIs, more enterprises are willing to use them and in effect more consumers will get protected and their digital lives will be more convenient and secure. From seamless authentication to KYC, and from protecting against APP (Authorised Push Payment) fraud to protecting against Account Takeover – the use cases which existed from a long time are getting delivered across the globe, to many billions more consumers.

Interestingly – in some of the geographies – it’s the non-financial verticals who are seeing the values as well – from providing seamless authentication for online marketplace for livestock to social networks dedicated to the senior citizens! It’s an exciting time for the Telco APIs.

In your TEDx talk, you mentioned trust as the foundation of the digital world. What does "trust" mean in a data-driven age, and how does Sekura.id work to establish and maintain it?

Trust is the confidence that the data is used reliably, accurately, responsibly and for the intended purpose only, even when the data is invisible for the businesses and consumers.

Trust is the anchor for everything we do at Sekura.id. From the detailed due-diligence of the enterprises while onboarding, to the detailed analysis of the use cases including any privacy messages conveyed to the consumers, to making these transparent to the telcos – we at Sekura.id ensure that every element of the data supply chain is validated. The same diligence is applied in the technical systems – from the API security to establish the intended businesses are using the APIs and only the data for which due diligence and onboarding has been done, to ensuring that no personal data is stored including in the training of ML models.

From a futurist’s lens, what innovations do you believe will define the next generation of secure online experiences, beyond what we’re seeing with mobile and biometrics today?

The current digital world has been revolving around the 3 A’s: Apps, APIs and AI, and the 4^th “A” is converging all these into a singularity – it’s the Agentic AI. Our online experiences will not start with the App on the phone, instead it will be through our Personal AI Agent – PAI. Instead of opening the rideshare app and entering the address to travel to and clicking a bunch of buttons to pay and book the ride – our PAI will just know when to book the ride, to which address and taking care of our preferences on its own! User Experience – UX will give way to AX – Agent Experience! Our PAI will represent our “Digital.Me”, so Identity and specially authentication will take a big shift from active into passive to cater for the AX. Authorisation will become more relevant and important to ensure secure online experience and also to keep human in the loop – authentication of the Agents to Agents and Authorisation by the humans for the AX.

Many consumers still don’t understand how their mobile data is used for authentication. How can the industry improve transparency and user education without compromising usability?

I believe, what is needed is not necessarily the education on the technology, how mobile data is used or how authentication works – its rather building the trust around the technology. Many of the consumers may not know how the cryptography in the SIM works – it’s invisible to them, they may not even be aware that there is a unique128 bit  cryptographic key sitting in the SIM they are carrying in their phone but they trust that whenever someone will call them on their mobile phone – the mobile network operator will “identify” them seamlessly (their SIM rather) and connect the call to them and will charge them appropriately, and also if something goes wrong – they can walk to a point-of-sale or call the customer care.

What’s your advice for startups or enterprises looking to implement robust digital identity frameworks in a rapidly changing regulatory and threat landscape?

Identity is a complex problem, not just from technology standpoint, especially because the Internet was created without any Identity layer, and with the world moving in the AI perimeter at an astounding speed – from Predictive AI to Generative AI and now to Agentic AI and into Physical AI in the near-future – Identity will become even more complex, when the AI Agents will start to represent my Digital.Me. So, focus on your core business and collaborate with the specialists who have dedicated their time and resources into solving the Identity problem and will keep doing it with all the variables around it – from changing regulations to AI Agents taking over our digital lives. We at Sekura.id cannot solve every problem in the digital world – but we do solve the Identity problems with our best-of-the-class solutions, we have been doing the same from a very long time and will keep doing that, let’s work together.

Rapid Replies: 

Passwordless or coffee-less for a day?

Passwordless – any day! Coffee can wait for another day, a world without Passwords cannot!

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Favorite app/tool you can’t live without?

App – LinkedIn; Tool – Mobile Phone

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If mobile identity were a superhero, what would its power be?

Invisible. Identity, including mobile identity needs to be invisible, invisibility of technology is in a way humanisation of technology, as narrated by none other than Steve Jobs: “Technology should either be beautiful or it should be invisible”

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One piece of advice for your 25-year-old techie self?

Build technology not just to solve a problem, build it for the humans around it.

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Describe Sekura.id in three words.

ABC: Authentic, Brilliant, Compassionate

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AI in identity: sidekick or overlord?

A sidekick which can become an overlord – if humanisation of this technology is ignored.

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(A huge thank you, Gautam, for such an enlightening and thought-provoking conversation. Your ability to blend deep technical insight with human-centric vision is truly inspiring, and your relentless drive to solve the digital identity crisis shines through in every word. We’re grateful for your time, your candor, and your commitment to building a more inclusive, secure, and empathetic digital world. We’ll be watching closely as you continue to lead the way, toward a future where identity is a right, not a barrier.)

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Sekura.id at a Glance: 

With a presence spanning five continents, Sekura.id is the world’s leading provider of mobile data intelligence, delivering trusted, secure, and frictionless solutions for identity verification, fraud prevention, and seamless online authentication. Working in close partnership with top-tier KYC, identity verification, and risk data providers, Sekura.id powers some of the world’s most recognized brands.

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