Workplace IDV gains steam: Yoti, Persona, 1Kosmos streamline employee onboarding

Workplace identity verification (IDV) is increasingly becoming popular among enterprises.

Notable incidents such as the hacking of casino and hospitality operator MGM Resorts and reports of U.S. firms inadvertently hiring North Koreans or other fake candidates for remote roles are driving an uptick in adoption. The cybersecurity events are spurring the adoption of robust employee onboarding and account recovery processes, according to Gartner VP analyst Akif Khan.

Identity verification for workers is also known as Know Your Employee (KYE), and it is used to screen out people who try to conceal their identity or a criminal background. KYE can help protect organizations against internal threats and unauthorized access to sensitive information, as well as in maintaining regulatory compliance.

Yoti’s UK background screening plan

UK digital identity company Yoti recently published a case study, detailing its achievements with employee background screening company Agenda Screening. The result was a reduction of candidate verification time by approximately 50 percent, according to the firm.

The company was dealing with several challenges: Time-consuming manual document checks prone to errors, adapting to new regulatory changes and detecting sophisticated forgeries. Agenda Screening was also anticipating a shift toward digital identity verification and biometric authentication and was searching for a partner.

To meet the UK’s Right-to-Work and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) requirements, the Agenda Screening introduced Yoti’s digital identity verification solution to increase speed and accuracy. Biometric and AI-driven verification was also introduced to prevent fraud.

More than 70 percent of DBS ID verifications are approved instantly, while 84 percent of right-to-work checks are completed during their first time.

“Digital ID from Yoti enhances both compliance and security, while also ensuring a seamless user experience,” says Agenda Screening’s Managing Director Chris Withers. “The results speak for themselves with faster hiring, reduced admin work, and a more reliable verification process identified as key benefits from using it.”

Okta leverages Persona for IDV

A recent survey by cybersecurity company CyberArk has found that 65 percent of office workers have circumvented company security policies for efficiency. Identity verification company Persona believes that the solution to this is its integration with Okta.

The company sees four use cases for identity verification paired with Identity and Access Management (IAM) platforms like Okta’s: Employee onboarding, device enrollment or logging into a work account on a new device, account recovery and high-risk actions such as large transactions, accessing sensitive information or downloading data.

The Persona widget is now fully embedded into Okta workflows so identity verification can be completed within the Okta session.

The integration is part of what Okta calls in a web post its Okta Secure Identity Commitment (OSIC). Okta has made ID verification a mandatory part of its own internal employee onboarding and account recovery processes. The processes use Persona software to compare government-issued IDs and photos captured from a variety of angles for face biometrics matching, liveness and attention-awareness checks.

Okta has also taken advantage of Persona’s customization capabilities to include country verification so access to its services can be curtailed based on import controls or sanctions.

1Kosmos warns of antiquated identity verification processes

Despite the rise of remote work and related identity fraud, companies continue to rely on antiquated identity verification such as manual document reviews, emails and SMS messages that can be easily defeated with high-quality fakes and deepfakes, warns 1Kosmos.

The passwordless authentication company says that its self-service authentication eliminates these risks through passwordless, identity-backed biometrics and decentralized identity. Its platform can accommodate government credentials issued from 140 countries with 99 percent and is compliant with NIST 800-63-3, UK DIATF, FIDO2, and ISO/IEC 30107 standards.

Kosmos1 works on workforce verification and authentication with companies such as Concentrix. Its product can detect stolen and synthetic identities from any device, the company says.

Article Topics

1Kosmos  |  digital ID  |  document verification  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  KYE  |  Okta  |  onboarding  |  Persona  |  selfie biometrics  |  Yoti