Seven ways to win the race against identity-fraudsters

This is a guest post by Gus Tomlinson, General Manager Identity Fraud Propositions at GBG.

For every advance in identity verification technology, there’s an advance in identity fraud methods. It’s an arms race that keeps both sides innovating, but technology is always going to give the good guys the edge.

Identity verification goes hand-in-hand with fraud prevention, and document verification and biometric technology are a crucial part of that.

The truth is, data breaches have become an almost accepted risk of doing business and there is a vast amount of personal data available online for fraudsters to exploit. The dark web has become a virtual shopping ground for personal data, and both organisations and individuals are starting to feel the pain of that.

It’s become not only a place to buy and sell personal information, but also a place to make identity fraud easier.

Users can now get their hands on the best tips and tricks for forging documents, templates to create counterfeits and guides to produce fantasy documents.

This terrifying level of coordination on the fraudsters’ side demands an equally coordinated response. To that end, here are seven ways you can win the identity document race against fraudsters:

1. Stop living in a fantasy 

Fantasy documents are essentially fictional identity documents that prey on people’s ignorance. Depending on where in the world you’re based, you might not know whether the ‘State of Cheshire’ issues driving licenses.

By using technology that allows you to predetermine which documents you will and won’t accept, you won’t even give these ‘documents’ the chance to get through.

2. Tamper, tamper

Fraudsters can create tampered documents in minutes that could catch out even seasoned document checkers. Algorithms are harder to fool, though.

Make sure you’re checking for physical and digital tampering with technology that checks for anomalies against official templates to detect invalid ID numbers, incorrect security features, image editing and font changes.

3. If the face fits

You don’t want to overburden your customer experience with unnecessary friction, but by layering your checks you can introduce friction that makes the experience worse for fraudsters.

Layering document verification with facial recognition technology removes the relative anonymity fraudsters hide behind by forcing them to validate the photo ID they’re using, and may dissuade them from even trying their luck.

4. Live and direct

A determined fraudster might not be put off by facial recognition checks. In fact, they might have some luck passing the check using a photograph of someone else rather than their own face – bit they won’t be able to trick a liveness check.

Liveness checks ask the user to perform a series of actions in front of a camera to prove they’re genuinely present. This puts a serious barrier in a fraudster’s way and they’ll likely give up.

5. Docs away

Eliminate document fraud completely by using NFC technology.

You can capture and extract the information directly from a document’s RFID chip using NFC, which means it doesn’t matter how fraudsters try to tamper with it the information printed on the document.

Introduce biometric matching and liveness checks and you can verify they’re the document holder.

6. Layer up

Layering your checks with data can help you to build trust around an identity.

For example, you can identify change of address using postal data, introduce confidence from IP address fraud, validate a mobile and email number, check against known fraud databases and match against mortality data to get a fuller picture of the customer’s identity.

By combining the right technology for your exposure to fraud, you can create trust as your onboard good customers and make life harder for criminals – winning the document race against fraudsters.

7. Leveraging NFC technology

By using NFC technology with enabled phones and documents you have the ability to extract the data directly from the document, cross reference with the data captured by the user and ensure the document has the correct certification attached to it.

Where the risk is high, this simple step can ensure you truly are beating fraud.

About the author

Gus Tomlinson is General Manager Identity Fraud Propositions at GBG and an expert in identity technology with experience in global data, regulations and market trends. She has a deep understanding not only of GBG’s product portfolio, but also the global markets that its customers operate in across the globe.

DISCLAIMER: Biometric Update’s Industry Insights are submitted content. The views expressed in this post are that of the author, and don’t necessarily reflect the views of Biometric Update.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometric identification  |  biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  fraud prevention  |  GBG  |  identity document  |  identity verification  |  NFC  |  RFID