Identity fraud is a cat and mouse game of fraudsters finding and exploiting loopholes in IDV systems before they’re discovered. It’s an ongoing battle that organisations can only win with triangulation of technology and data.
To understand where triangulation comes from and why it’s so important today, you need to know how eKYC has evolved alongside technology and fraud.
Compliance and fraud solutions at the point of onboarding have to evolve continuously to meet the continuing pressures from regulators and sophistication of fraudsters.
Online trust is earned, not just freely given. When it comes to identity trust needs validation against multiple data points and technology that can, in real-time, interpret, match and cross-reference that data to give a true result.
As the internet has evolved, so too has the way we treat an identity online. Technology has enabled two things:
In the relatively early days of eKYC, regulators and organisations would verify an identity by matching a name, address and/or DOB on two separate trusted data sets (credit data, tax data, birth registries). This was, for a time, deemed adequate.
Next came the ability to capture a document and send the image for verification. Fast-forward a few years and biometrics enter the commercial world, allowing users to take a selfie so that it can be checked against the image on your document. The latest development, liveness, proves a user is the person behind the data in real-time.
Independently, these data points prove a point. And the technologies that validate the information are incredibly powerful. But the challenge, and what is critical to ensure you have in place, is continuous cross-referencing of these data points.
To make a trusted decision, technologies need to talk to each other. This is what enables you to have certainty that an identity is legitimate. Without algorithms and journeys that have triangulation at their core, fraudsters have an opportunity to spoof the journey.
And when one fraudster identifies this weakness in a process, they will exploit it, and what’s worse is they will spread the word, leaving your onboarding process open to fraud.
The evolution of technology has not only enabled documents and biometrics, but a whole other raft of data sources. Our identities are as well defined by our names and addresses, as they are our digital footprints.
Our devices, our mobile and email accounts and our digital behaviour are all personal to us. The deluge of this data and the rapid growth of online commerce mean that these data points can now be interrogated as part of the identity onboarding stage.
Combined with traditional solutions they tell a story of the identity, and when collated into a single decision can help you build trust.
By layering this data and continuing to triangulate the results you can ensure that you are delivering the best experience and letting as many of the good guys in as you want while stopping potential bad guys from trading with you.
Hear from us when we launch new research, guides and reports.