NEC said that it is working with eight partners, including Microsoft and France Telecom’s Orange Labs, to develop enhanced privacy technology for smartphones.

The intention is to work on cryptography-based, anonymous authentication technologies, which enable service providers to control access to services, while also protecting the anonymity of subscribers and terminals.

It was noted that in recent years, the growth of smartphones has been supported by a boom in location and commerce services. However, in line with this, “the risk of violating user privacy is also growing as these services verify users and terminals with IDs that can be used to track user access and behavioural history.”

The Japan-based IT company also highlighted that such work is not without its challenges. Anonymous authentication requires a significant amount of computing power, which is an issue for smartphones due to limits on computing power and battery life.

The work is being funded by France’s Agence Nationale de la Recherche. Other participants include Atos Worldline and Oberthur Technologies.