I first met Charles Nouÿrit at Le Web in 2007. Surrounded by ‘boothe babes’ in tight white T-shirts, he was handing out cards about something called Myid.is. Was this the standard French startup pitch at Le Web? It probably was back in 2007. And it was a little hard to take the pitch, such as it was, seriously. But Identity? “ID”? Yes, it was a hot topic even then – and still is. Since then 600 million users have signed up to Facebook, close to 100 million on LinkedIn. Sure, many of those won’t be fully kosher online identities. But isn’t the issue of a verified online identity slowly being solved? The answer of course is no. Real identity, and more importantly the verification of someone’s ID by a trusted third party is nowhere near being solved online, outside of the banking system. But this is going to be a key battleground online going forward, especially where ecommerce and the ability to ‘sign’ for things enters a new phase. And – since 2007 – Charles has stuck to his guns on his startup and aimed high.And today Myid.is is emerging as a potentially powerful play.
A giant trial with the French Post office (La Poste) with a service branded as “Identic” will soon launch, claiming to be a world first in the Identity space. Identic is a brand owned by La Poste but run behind the scenes by MyID.is and allows digital identity to be verified by the La Poste organisation.
