In a world of online shopping and digital banking, it's more important than ever to confirm your customers' identities. Not only is identity verification an essential part of KYC and AML compliance regulations, but it also plays a key role in preventing fraudulent activity and identity theft.
But as customers become more aware of their online user experience, it's becoming increasingly important for online businesses to implement identity proofing processes that are secure and seamless.
Here's everything you need to know about identity proofing and confirming customer identity online.
What is identity proofing?
Identity proofing is the process of verifying that an individual is who they claim to be. It typically involves collecting personal information and documentation to confirm an individual’s identity. This process ensures that individuals can be trusted for various purposes, such as accessing services, conducting transactions or proving citizenship.
Why is identity proofing important?
Identity proofing plays a critical role in verifying an individual's identity. It's an essential step for many businesses before establishing a relationship with a new customer. Ultimately, ID proofing helps to:
Provide fraud protection: Identity proofing helps protect against fraud by confirming an individual's claimed identity. By verifying identity at the outset, organisations can prevent fraudulent activities like data breaches, account takeovers, identity fraud, financial fraud or unauthorised access to services.
Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements: Many industries, particularly financial services, healthcare and government sectors, are required by law to perform robust identity verification to comply with global anti-money laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) regulations.
Secure digital transactions: In an increasingly digital world, identity proofing ensures that online transactions are secure. Whether it’s opening a bank account, applying for a loan or accessing medical records, identity verification reduces the risk of fraud and unauthorised actions.
Build trust and credibility: Identity proofing establishes trust with customers by ensuring that only legitimate users can access their services. This is critical in sectors like banking, healthcare and e-commerce, where trust is a key factor for maintaining customer relationships
Identity proofing vs authentication
While identity proofing and authentication are two approaches to verifying a user's identity, the main difference lies in the timing and purpose of the processes.
Identity proofing is the initial step in verifying that a person's actual identity matches their claimed identity. It typically happens when a person first signs up for a service, account or access to a system. This process of verifying a person's identity involves collecting and verifying personal information and documents, like their driver's license, passport or birth certificate, to confirm their identity. Identity proofing is usually a one-time process when onboarding someone into a system.
On the other hand, authentication is the process of confirming the user requesting access to a system or service is the same individual who was initially identity-proofed. The authentication process typically happens each time the user tries to log in or access a system by verifying their credentials, such as a password, PIN or biometric data (fingerprint, facial recognition).
In short, identity proofing verifies your identity when you first establish access to a service, while authentication confirms your identity every time you access it thereafter.
Identity proofing examples
Identity proofing involves verifying personal details through various methods and technologies. Here are some examples of common identity proofing approaches.
Personal identifying information (PII)
PII verification relies on personal details that are unique to an individual. This information is sensitive and must be handled carefully due to the risk of identity theft or fraud. While PII provides a foundational layer for verifying the person’s identity, it's not necessarily foolproof, so additional verification methods are often used alongside this approach.
Let's say a user is signing up for an online bank account for the first time. As part of the identity proofing process, they might be asked to provide personally identifiable information, like their full name, date of birth, Social Security Number (SSN) in the US or Tax File Number (TFN) in Australia.
This data is then cross-checked against trusted databases, like government records or credit bureaus, to confirm their identity belongs to the person claiming it.
Document verification
Document verification is the process of validating the authenticity of physical or digital copies of identity documents. This ensures that the identity information presented by an individual is not only accurate but also tied to a real, government-issued record. Document verification is a widely used and reliable method. However, the risk lies in forged or stolen documents, so it’s often combined with other methods for increased security.
Following on from the example above, the user might also be asked to provide government-issued photo ID, like a driver's license or passport, to further verify their identity. These documents are scanned or inspected for authenticity, often using technology like optical character recognition (OCR) to extract information and checked against issuing authority databases or document authenticity features like holograms and watermarks.
Biometric verification
Biometric verification is quickly becoming a popular method for verifying user identity. This approach relies on the unique biological characteristics of individuals. Biometrics are difficult to replicate or steal, making them a robust method for identity verification. That said, biometric systems need to be secure to protect against the misuse or theft of biometric data, which is hard to change once compromised.
Biometric verification uses a range of biometric markers, like fingerprint scans, iris scans, voice recognition and facial biometrics to confirm a users identity. In particular, facial recognition, like a selfie photo or video liveness check, is often cross-checked with an identity document as part of the verification process.
When used together, these methods often work in combination to form a multi-layered approach to identity proofing, enhancing security and minimising fraud risks.
Identity proofing solutions with Data Zoo
At Data Zoo, we understand that identity proofing matters, which is why we developed our seamless KYC solution. Our identity proofing process allows you to quickly verify a user's identity, eliminating friction and simplifying your onboarding process. If you're after an identity proofing solution that can be easily configured to suit your internal systems, get in touch with one of our experts to find out more.