Contactless is the new contact: Siddhaant Mohta, Doot

The fact that contactless technology is the way forward is now undisputed. While this eventuality has slowly and steadily been a long time in the making, the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new era where the deployment of contactless processes has been spurred at an unbelievable rate, sadly out of sheer desperation. Had good sense to adopt modern technology at the rapid pace our life and times demand prevailed, rather than human complacence and institutional inertia, we could fundamentally have mitigated at least a small proportion of the risk day to day physical human contact arising from the simplest of activities pose. We could for instance have slightly restricted the spread of the novel coronavirus through basic actions like more proactively finding alternatives to exchanging documents and cash.

There is no doubt that COVID or no COVID, there can now be no going back entirely to a pre-2020 world where routine everyday activities like checking into a hotel or verifying a ticket at a movie theatre should essentially involve significant human contact. And why should they, when simple, inexpensive technology can instead be deployed to eliminate the need for such an exchange?

It was absolutely unthinkable a little over two decades ago, when the world wide web was the new kid on the block, that we would one day live in a magical land with wifi, Bluetooth and NFC technology, which would enable the sharing of substantial information, images or even live videos in real-time, without actually having to write, print or post physical letters or images. The world has changed more in this regard in just the last twenty years, than well over the fifty years before that. The next five years are likely to transform our surroundings even further, to the extent that what is today’s new or innovative will look plain and archaic to even those who are seriously wowed by it in the here and now.

Imagine a world where walking into an airport terminal, upto a hotel check-in counter, queuing at a bank branch or entering a cinema hall doesn’t require any physical checks, documents or the need to interact with another human being, or indeed even to scan a QR code. The day is not far when all these routine processes will become not only simpler but more secure. In fact, this mythical future is already very much here- it is just not evenly distributed between countries, and amongst socio-economic groups. This is for various complex reasons ranging from the cost of smart devices some of these technologies function best on, to general awareness and willingness to adopt such disruptive technology- particularly in the developing world, for fear of perceived pricing, though ironically this is typically where it is needed the most, given the sheer magnitude of the population and the unbearable pressure on time and resources arising from that.

Carrying money has become less and less important, and carrying documents will go steadfastly in the same direction. Contactless transmission of ID documents or vouchers will be smooth and frictionless- not only in terms of having to worry about microbes exchanging hands in these and future pandemic times but with systems built around protocols like ultrasonic communication that goes above and beyond simpler pairing-based avenues such as the internet or NFC.

Contactless technology that is much more secure and hack-proof than traditional methods which can be duplicated, is here to stay and grow bigger by the day. Gone will be the worry that you have to communicate with twenty strangers as you go through your customer journey at an airport, railway station or bank branch. Human error in terms of misplacing a sensitive document that ends up in the wrong hands somewhere down the chain, or a security official or authorised personnel inadvertently allowing a terrorist masquerading as an innocent civilian into a high-risk venue can be eliminated through contactless AI-based face recognition technology or other sophisticated biometric procedures. And when all this happens more speedily than physical checks, happens to be in line with governmental regulation, and overall seems to work just fine in practical real-world situations, why not embrace it rather than sitting on the sidelines and watch it unfold in its own organic fashion?

Another added benefit of some kinds of contactless technology is empowering those who are unable to make traditional “contact”- specifically in India’s case, the one hundred million or so individuals who suffer from vision or hearing impairment, or another serious physical handicap. Contactless technologies with features built-in that can make these people inclusive will be the true winner in this context, providing an inclusive solution for a seriously underserved population.

Eliminating rampant use of paper has consistently been a goal for environmentalists, and contactless technology does just that by removing the need for millions of photocopied documents to exchange hands every day. Document repositories can be digitally stored and transmitted over various mediums, seriously reducing clutter in the common home, as well as on a hotel check-in counter or the basement of an inefficient bank branch- where one can easily envisage mountains of paper stored for eternity, only to one day be lost, destroyed by the elements or devoured by rodents!

All in all, contactless technology has been a necessity for some time, with regular demands made by various quarters to encourage its adoption. The pandemic has been exactly the wake-up call that was needed to actually drive speedy adoption. Contactless technology has, in several shapes and forms, helped mankind reduce the impact and spread of the novel coronavirus, and will continue to help us combat such challenges in the future. It does, however, very importantly also allow us to resolve an enormous range of pain points. These contactless solutions will certainly not be forgotten in a post-pandemic world, where more and more users wishing to access essential services across sectors are now increasingly used to such protocols.

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