Introduction
It has become important now more than ever for a company to verify a user’s identity on their platforms, especially with how widespread identity theft has become in recent years, along with the widespread usage of bots and the rise in hacking schemes.
Identity verification and validation allow a company to ensure that its reputation and business are protected from damage by scams and fraud schemes, and this can only be done by improving the overall identity security infrastructure of a company’s platform.
This article takes you through the implementations and importance of identity validation and verification, and how your business can take the essential steps in safeguarding your platform from online threats and improving your system vulnerabilities, especially when it comes to identifying kenya id.
The Importance of Identity Validation And Verification
With the rise of bots performing online services, it can be difficult for a weak software system to determine if the user’s profile is real or fake i.e. if there is a real human on the other end of the system.
The amount of damage that fraudsters can do can cause irreparable damage to a business’s revenue, platform, and reputation. This makes identity validation one of the most important features a company should implement into its platform.
Governments around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the need for identity validation, and have introduced legislation to ensure that companies comply to set standards for implementing identity verification software within their systems.
Authenticating A User
Once a user signs up for an account and verifies their identity, they are typically required to authenticate themselves with each new sign-in via means such as biometrics (face ID or fingerprint) or multi-factor authentication (2FA).
These methods of authentication allow the server to determine if the person returning to the profile is the same and if they are a real person.
Implementing Identity Verification In Your Business
The industry practice for identity verification involves the use of third-party companies as it may be costlier to have an in-house team of developers working to ensure identity security round the clock. It is also easier to scale your identity verification processes by outsourcing to these companies.
Generally, there are four main solutions used in the industry for identity verification and validation. These solutions have their respective pros and cons, and you may choose them depending on the needs of your business and the strength or weakness of your existing identity verification systems.
1. Biometrics
Biometrics take advantage of the uniqueness of each human being, in that our faces, fingerprints, and voices are all different.
Biometrics, while a convenient method of validating a user’s data, carries with it data privacy issues which have slowed its take up by companies and governments around the world.
However, as the technology is becoming better and the accuracy of biometrics has been steadily increasing, more governments and companies see themselves adopting it into their system.
2. Multi-Factor Authentication
Widely used on online platforms, multi-factor authentication 2-Factor Authentication (2FA), and One-Time Password (OTP) confirm a user’s identity by requiring the use of an additional device or software system to log into an account. This adds a layer of security and reduces the reliance on usernames and passwords as the main modes of log-in data.
There are growing concerns about the efficiency of 2FA, particularly as online scams become more elaborate in stealing users’ data such as OTP messages. This makes multi-factor authentication increasingly undesirable as a mode of identity validation and verification.
3. Document And Video Verification
This mode of identity validation and verification is becoming increasingly implemented on many platforms. Users are required to upload real-life pictures or videos such as driving licenses, passports, or even selfies to verify their identities.
The main drawback of this method of verification is that it can be a time-consuming process, especially for users who value expediency and convenience when using an online platform.
However, this method is not without its vulnerabilities. As technologies such as deep-fake become more elaborate, hackers are bound to use the likeness of a platform to gain access to accounts.
4. Digital Footprint Analysis
This newer method of identity verification has been seen as one of the most powerful identities verification tools by experts in the industry. Digital footprint analysis works based on using a user’s email address and phone number to link all if not most of their social media presence that is tied to those identifiers.
Digital footprint analysis includes but is not limited to blogs, websites, videos, photos uploaded to social media pages, and public profiles. However, this method of identity validation and verification involves the heavy use of resources. It can be extremely time-intensive, with cost and labour being major factors as well in its implementation. This makes scaling difficult, despite being one of the most accurate tools for verifying and validating a user’s identity.
Conclusion
Identity validation and verification involve the management and processing of thousands if not millions of datasets from users’ identity profiles. As companies grow in size, so do their user counts, and finding the right solution to be implemented into your identity verification system is a crucial step in ensuring the safety of your platform and protecting your business’s reputation.
Companies have more options now to invest in automation and outsource to third-party specialist companies to streamline the process of verifying a user’s identity. This can involve technologies such as phone number analysis, IP address analysis, and reverse email lookup to detect suspicious activities from a user’s profile.
With the right tools for analysis of a user’s identity, your business can be well prepared to safeguard against the vulnerabilities that threaten many online systems today. Be sure to consult with your local authorities as well on the proper implementations of user identity checks in your system, which will ensure that both your company and your users are well protected from online threats.
We hope that with this summary of the importance of identity validation and verification, your business will be better able to begin implementing the right tools to better protect your platforms and the identities of your users.
