International migrants or foreign-born make up the population in every country for reasons such as; temporary workers, students, athletes, victims of certain crimes, and family members of citizens or permanent residents, to name a few. Global estimates indicated an average of 281 million migrants in 2020 – equating to 3.6% of the worldwide population. Over the past five decades, the number of migrating internationals has spiked with 128 million more people than recorded in 1990; and over three times in 1970. While this number might seem low or insignificant from a global perspective, there are countries with significant overseas-born populations, such as Australia, with 29.8% of their population made up of foreign-born individuals.
When the individual arrives in a new country, verifying international migrants is difficult because their only forms of identity documentation are from their country of origin and their recently provided Visa. As a result, it creates complications during onboarding when they are required to provide identifying information from two separate reliable local data sources for safe harbour obligations. When an organisation encounters this challenge, they will either have to handle the customer onboarding process manually, wasting unnecessary time and money, or they will accept that the customer cannot be verified or onboarded. Given the high percentage of migrants in first-world countries, this could significantly reduce account opening rates and cost millions in revenue each year.
How to verify international migrants and meet regulatory obligations
Thankfully, cross-border verification can eliminate this problem and help organisations meet safe harbour requirements. This is because customers can provide their local documentation, such as their Visa, while also using their country-of-origin identity documentation. By supplementing the second local source with a reliable international source, organisations can streamline migrant customer onboarding and increase new account application approval rates.
Traditional identity services make it hard and create friction by limiting access to certain countries, including the complexity to integrate new countries quickly. Our single integration provides instant access to reliable sources from over 100 countries, while our web-based portal and batch services assist with exception handling.
At Data Zoo, we understand the difference between being compliant (self-audited) and certified (audited by independent third-party auditors). We hold certifications against multiple information security standards as opposed to other traditional suppliers in the market claiming to be compliant. We ensure adequate legal and regulatory obligations are met for cross-border interoperability. Our data processing strategy reflects a thorough risk assessment and is built on well-known and globally accepted standards (such as ISO27001, SOC2 (Type-II), SOC3, ASAE3150, ISO30701) and regulations.