Accessible face biometrics can boost financial inclusion, iProov argues

Identity verification through video calls is susceptible to attacks, and like CAPTCHAs risks limiting accessibility for certain groups, according to a report from iProov. It makes the case that biometrics and liveness detection are the technologies that can enable secure and accessible digital identity.

“Unlocking Financial Inclusion with Digital Identity and Biometric Verification: European Digital Identity Wallet Use Case” is a 14-page paper that starts with explanations of why legal identity is important, and how digital identity can boost financial inclusion. It proceeds to a review of the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW) and the pilots being conducted with it.

Any financial inclusion project takes on the risk of onboarding people new to the financial system, providing ideal cover for fraudsters, the paper points out. That means strong binding to the official document used as Personal Identification Data (PID) is necessary.

iProov goes on to explain why liveness detection is more secure than video call verification, which can be spoofed with generative AI and a forged ID document. Presentation attacks and digital injection attacks are compared, and the imbalance in testing regimes explained.

The final section applies these observations to the challenge of increasing the inclusivity of digital identity in the European Union. iProov notes that 24 percent of EU citizens have some form of disability, and 10 percent belong to racial or ethnic minorities, while technology literacy varies heavily from country to country.

This makes the convenience and ease-of-use of face biometrics and liveness detection appealing, the company argues.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) already provides a best practice standard for making digital interactions accessible to all that biometrics vendors can use to improve their software.

Compliance with WCAG and other accessibility standards plus strong defense against injection attacks will allow the EU to meet its inclusivity goals with face biometrics, iProov concludes.

Ajay Amlani, President and head of Americas for iProov, discussed the need to protect against injection attacks in a recent email to Biometric Update.

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  digital identity  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  face biometrics  |  financial inclusion  |  identity verification  |  iProov  |  onboarding