How digital identity authentication can help France’s document fraud problem: Fourthline

France has seen an explosion in the rates of identity and biometric document fraud; four times higher than the rest of Europe in the first quarter of this year, according to a new report by Fourthline.

The country has experienced the highest rates of application fraud in Europe since 2018 (when Fourthline first began gathering fraud data), yet since February 2020, there has been a dramatic rise in rates of application fraud (3.32 percent) compared to the rest of Europe (0.84 percent).

Criminals are increasingly using sophisticated and varied methods to trick the system for example, fraudsters using the victim’s face to match an existing ID via a social media picture, or applying using a selfie (i.e. the person in the selfie is not the same person as the one on the government-issued identity document).

There is currently no online system available for checking the validity of French documents.

The report analyses the growing threat of this application fraud, how it manifests for an organization and how technology can work to prevent it. Organizations operating in France are under increasing pressure to re-evaluate KYC procedures.

Digital identity solutions can work to mitigate this fraudulent behavior and are becoming more commonplace as companies transition to a digital onboarding process, of which Covid-19 has accelerated. Biometric analysis company Revelock recently highlighted  several key digital ID strategies to tackle fraud at a user conference.

Digital identity authentication solutions should continue to monitor for any geolocation anomalies, criminal activity patterns, and data inconsistencies to ensure safeguarding, says Fourthline. Meanwhile organizations develop or maintain robust governance, elective risk procedures and adequate internal controls to confront this threat. Though, Fourthline notes, companies should still strike a balance between the right blend of technological and human capabilities.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  document reader  |  Fourthline  |  France  |  fraud prevention  |  identity document  |  identity verification  |  onboarding