Amsterdam-based digital security company Gemalto has developed an industry-first 5G SIM card.

A key feature in the new 5G SIM card is the full anonymisation of end-to-end subscriber identity which is facilitated by on board identify encryption. This will help mobile operators remain GDPR compliant as it will reduce the misuse of personnel data and hamper the ability of threat actors to trace and locate individuals.

The new 5G SIM card will enable seamless 5G roaming on mobile operators networks. It will also potentially be crucial in the development of data roaming reliant IoT devices that are placed in difficult to access locations.

It is estimated that by the year 2024 the next generation of mobile technology, 5G, will have reached 40 percent of the world’s population, amounting to over 1.5 billion subscriptions to the service, according to Ericsson’s mobility report.

5G Sim Compliant with ETSI 3GPP1 and SIMalliance Standards

Emmanuel Unguran EVP Mobile Services & IoT Business Unit at Gemalto commented in a released statement that: “The 5G SIM provides the foundation of trust in this next generation mobile network for operators and other stakeholders in the eco-system”

“It will help operators unleash the full 5G potential, maximize their network investments, and simplify new service deployment with full backward compatibility to previous 3G/4G technology.”

Gemalto have stated that the new SIM meets the requirements of telecommunications and SIM card standards associations ETSI 3GPP1 and SIMalliance. The Dutch enterprise expects to have the 5G SIM card available in all SIM card size SIM, M2M SIM and eSIM, by the first half of 2019.

“Qualcomm Technologies has a longstanding relationship with Gemalto focused on delivering mobile solutions with robust security,” said Gautam Sheoran, Senior Director, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are now extending this collaboration to allow OEMs to easily develop exciting 5G devices with strong security, using both Gemalto 5G SIM and our next generation flagship Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855 Mobile Platform to pave the path for 5G commercialization in 2019.”

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