With Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and cyber criminals hijacking PCs, personal information is being compromised more and more regularly. So we protect data with security layers but after Stuxnet, Night Dragon and Heartbleed, are passwords a good way for banks to secure customer data? In this session we explore a number of ideas related to access, identity and personal control over personal data.

William Heath (chairman, Mydex CIC) explains how data givebacks, new-style ID assurance and placing the individual at the centre of your digital architecture and in control of their own lives is the way to survive and thrive. Brian Taylor, founder of PixelPIN shows how new forms of access control will make the password redundant and give us better, safer access to online services.

Mydex CIC is a social enterprise, with roots in the Young Foundation, which returns control over personal data to individuals. ISO27001, tScheme and OIX accredited, Mydex CIC is one of HM Government's next generation ID assurance providers. William Heath is chairman of Mydex CIC.

William Heath, Chairman of Mydex
William Heath is a serial entrepreneur. At the same time as co-founding Mydex, he co-founded the independent research business Ctrl-Shift Ltd, which advises on the implications of the polarity shift in customer empowerment which services such as Mydex will make possible. Before Mydex, he co-founded Kable Ltd, which researched the computerisation of public services (sold to GNM in 2007). From 2004 he moderated the Ideal Government multi-author blog, which explored how government IT could be done better: cheaper, faster, designed for the individual and built on a foundation of trust. As a digital rights volunteer he has chaired Open Rights Group and acted as vice chair for the Foundation for Information Policy Research. He remains an adviser to both.

PixelPin is a cyber security company that was nominated as one of the most innovative mobile start-ups by UKTI and SMART UK in January 2013. The founders, Brian Taylor and Geoff Anderson, had long established careers working with military intelligence and defence companies before developing the PixelPin patented approach to online authentication: using personal pictures to
replace passwords.

Brian Taylor, Founder, PixelPin
Brian Taylor, the inventor and CEO, came up with the idea whilst working with the London Met Surveillance team on transferring military grade surveillance systems into Homeland Security. The project team were prompted to input three levels of passwords that changed each month. Each password was randomly generated and a minimum of 15 digits, so the team ended up writing them down. Brian came up with the idea of replacing the passwords with pictures, and PixelPin was born.