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Countless industries are now moving their customer identity verification processes online instead of the traditional, face-to-face method.
This doesn’t come as a surprise considering the convenience, dependability, and level of security online identity verification brings.
If you’re looking to upgrade your customer authentication workflows by moving them online, then this guide is for you. This post covers the nitty-gritty of how identity verification processes work online, so you’ll have a better grasp of the concept.
Common Online Identity Verification Process Flow
Companies often implement this workflow when validating identities online:
The person registers on your website, app, or any other platform you’re using;
The user permits the access and use of their camera and microphone for identity verification;
Your app, website, or platform requests the registrant to look at the camera and show their face and other identity requirements;
Your platform scans and authenticates their face and identity documents;
If the process calls for further identity validation, a team of experts studies and validates the presented credentials from previous steps
Your platform confirms the user’s identity and registers them with your company.
Read our extensive guide to learn more about identity verification processes.
Forms of Online Identity Verification
Confirm your clients are who they say they are online by employing one or a mix of reliable identity verification systems, such as these below:
Document Authentication
Stable electronic systems and verification APIs can authenticate your clients’ identity documents more accurately than manual methods.
They work by scanning the requirements your clients present in front of their smartphones or computer cameras. Verification APIs then extract and review primary information.
Optical character recognition (OCR) technologies usually support these APIs, especially when clients display several documents in various languages.
Document authentication often involves examining the user’s full name, address format, if they photoshopped or tampered with the requirements, and the documents’ format type and expiry date.
Our solution, Raytio, automates the verification of identity documents you add to your profile. You can even set their expiry dates so we can instantly remind you to update them.
2FA Systems
Serving as an additional security layer, two-factor authentication (2FA) systems double-check your clients’ possession of personal information before letting them access their accounts.
These systems do that by:
Sending unique, auto-generated numerical codes on SMS or email for every login attempt;
Requiring users to type in the code within a limited period;
Matching the entered code with the one delivered;
Confirming user identity and permitting access to the account.
On Raytio, you can enable the Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator 2FA systems. Go to your Preferences page, and you’ll see the steps outlined like this:
AML Screening
AML screening, in adherence to New Zealand’s AML regulations, can be arduous as it involves many identity cross-references and audit trails.
Ease your compliance through streamlined AML screening procedures and software tools designed for them.
Conduct background checks on your high-risk clients and review them against global regulatory watchlists, Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) lists, and sanction lists.
Using AML solutions, you can enter their names and birthdates to uncover pertinent authentication details and prevent fraud and identity theft more quickly.
You can also validate companies by entering their registration (or business) number and check Ultimate Beneficial Owners’ (UBOs’) histories.
Rayt.io has a comprehensive list of trustworthy, official data sources that you can quickly refer to international PEP and sanction watchlists, credit bureaus, government references, accounting system providers, utility service providers, and more.
Database Methods
This technique lets you get data from various sources to authenticate your client’s identity. These references include social media, international watchlists, offline databases, and others.
Generally, database methods are useful for evaluating the risk level that users put forward and minimize the need to review identities manually.
With Raytio, you can build a rich, secure client database containing identity documents and information, such as bank transactions, credit facilities, income, health records, business accounting records, and many more.
(Explore our solution further by signing up for a free product demo. We have several other features you can discover and use in streamlining your identity proofing workflows.)
Address Confirmation
Validate your clients’ authenticity in real-time with automated software tools that cross-examine their addresses with trustworthy databases (refer to the above technique).
The software requests your clients to upload secondary requirements containing their addresses to check if they match the user-entered details.
These tools then analyze the information pieces via APIs and record the verification process.
Examples of identity documents containing addresses that you can request include government-issued ID cards, bank statements, utility bills, driver’s licenses, and others.
Biometrics Validation
Authenticate your clients’ identities by examining their biometrics through liveness detection and face verification.
This method lets you scan biological traits, such as facial features, retina, iris, voice, fingerprint, and other behavioral indicators unique to an individual.
By checking them, you can better guarantee that the person transacting with you at that moment is real and who they claim to be.
Once users have set up these and other credentials upon registration, they can use these traits for direct logins instead of typing their passwords.
Other tools also employ electronic signatures, which can integrate with videos recorded in real-time, device information, timestamps, IP location, etc.
Conclusion
With online identity verification, you can integrate several platforms and other robust electronic methods in your AML compliance and fraud prevention workflows. This improves your customer identity verification processes, increasing your team’s productivity and reducing your costs.
This is our third post in our Online Identity Verification series. You can find the others listed below:
Part 1. Your Ultimate Guide to Online Identity Verification
Part 2: Benefits of Online Identity Verification
Part 4: How Digital Identity Verification Services Make Regulatory Compliance Easier