Interactive TV: Instant personal security or maybe not.

In its essence interactive television presents television with the so-called “return path” model. Literally this feature means that the consumer, unlike the ordinary obsolete analog systems, can interact, influence and subsequently feedback some behavioral information back to the broadcaster. Thanks to the digital technology people would be able to amend or even intervene according to their individual preferences in the content of the programs. iTV can be used as a original information and communication platform which enables the consumers to utilize other applications including home-shopping, personalized banking, video-on-demand, internet access, interaction between user etc.( Tsaih, Chang and  Huang, 2005) .In recent years there has been industry wide recognition for the need to enhance interactive services through the introduction of a return path. It will allow content providers to offer viewers a new range of applications including as voting, games, chat-like services(allowing viewers to send in comments and opinion), and interactive transactions for purchasing goods and services.“ In fact, most commonly people mention iTV with regards to three characteristic features: 1.Instant access/convenience 2.Personalization 3.Security

     Basically the concept of instant access which uses the phone line as a return path helps the consumers to communicate with their service provider. The return path can exist in several forms by telephone, mobile SMS, radio, digital subscriber lines (ADSL) or cable. Among them the phone lines continue to be the most widely-spread mean of communication. They truly are not so efficient method as they require additional efforts and human resources to process or send any information. Furthermore, the phone lines often cause customer dissatisfaction, inconvenience or simply order mistakes. Perhaps soon the technologies will allow faster and more effective ways for interactive correspondence. Until than the consumers will continue to face the inevitable difficulties    

    The idea for the personalization is not as popular concerning the customer’s point of view, however, it signifies enormous achievement for the marketers. With every click of our remote control we create an instant stream of information which afterwards is analyzed to depict a complicated picture of our individual behavioral and motivational patterns. In reality, this spy approach, based on the consumer knowledge, is used by the marketers to target the audience profiles with various marketing techniques. Logically emerges the question “Among all the available ways of communication which is the most efficient to target individuals”.

    Mobile and PC technologies provide appropriate manner to convey your message in person but they still doesn’t guarantee fully the personalized approach. It is not secret that the Internet access and the computers are widely distributed. For instance, in a household which typically consists of four members everybody may have an access to the home computer which, in fact, will not warrant individual approach to the potential customers. This idea can be equally applied with mobile technologies where people can exchange their sim cards between each other. Indeed as if the society has created wrongly the misconception that watching at home television should only be associated with group activity

    The security of the service’s payments is another important part concerning interactive TV. Any personal and financial information disclosed or used without the explicit consent of the party is considered illegal act and thereby can be prosecuted by the low. In that sense the whole idea of revealing your personal details to someone else without any protective measures seems quite scary perspective. Such suggestion would certainly generate multiple cases of financial frauds.

   In fact, there already exists technology which removes the function of the middleman when the consumers want to pay for their monthly subscription. In 2001 the iTV was launched in Finland. From the very beginning of this project the companies have started to research a way to facilitate the financial transactions via the TV receivers. The whole concept was based on the proposal that every sold set-top box would incorporate a card reader and two card slots one of which will be designed for smart card. When the customer orders a product or service which he wants to purchase the system will be able to proceed through the user identification, data security and secure payment transaction protocols. In addition, this massive venture was heavily supported by companies such as Visa, Nokia, OKOBANK Group, Digita, Finland Post and Teleware with the common aim to alleviate the transition to smart card payments. The revolutionary project has allowed fast adoption of any interactive TV services. It has concentrated its attention on implementing multimedia home platform (MHP) using Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) smart cards as a universal international standard for payment transactions. In other words, these companies have pledged their reputation and the viewers should feel at ease for their personal financial matters since the security will be guaranteed.

References

 DigiTV (2001) Secure payments an important part of developing interactive [Online] available from <http://www.digitv.fi/sivu.asp?path=9;1239;3392;1582..>

 DTG press release (2006) Always on return path under development for UK terrestrial TV [Online] available from<http://www.dtg.org.uk/dtg/press_release.php?id=4>

Tsaih, R. Chang, H. Huang, C. (2005)” The business concept of utilizing the interactive TV.“ Industrial Management and Data System 105,   (5)