Digital onboarding

INTRODUCTION

Identity proofing is the process by which a service provider collects and vali- dates information about an applicant and verifies that collected and validated information actually belongs to the applicant. For a long time, this was gen- erally achieved by an operator being physically present at the same place as the applicant, when extracting information and verifying an ID card of the applicant. However, the increase of the digital market rendered the idea of identifying a person remotely more attractive, benefitting many fields.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Banks and investment companies, pay- ment systems and crypto exchanges, they all rely on KYC (Know Your Customer) pro- cess to meet regulatory requirements. You can make identity document verification mandatory while providing customers with convenient online onboarding.

TELECOMM

To prevent fraud, yet benefit from online digital market, telecommunication com- panies can rely upon proof of identity over the internet. ID documents may be verified online while issuing SIM cards or signing up for new services. Digital onboarding will enhance the user experience and lead to higher conversion rates.

SHARING ECONOMY

Building trust and confidence among users is essential for sharing economy. Speed up the onboarding process for car sharing, bike sharing, e-scooter services, cowork- ing spaces, online marketplaces, P2P lend-ing services, and crowdfunding platforms. Identity verification will eliminate fraud and grow the brand.

INSURANCE

Prevent online fraud, stay compliant with current regulations and protect your busi- ness reputation while providing seamless customer onboarding. Document verifica- tion of health insurance cards or ID cards during insurance policy application can be part of the onboarding process.

AGE RESTRICTED PRODUCTS

To keep minors away from age-restricted goods, reliable age verification for online gaming, betting, e-sports, tobacco and vaping products, online alcohol stores and adult content is feasible. Biometric face recognition based on identity documents will deliver proof of actual age.

TRAVEL AND LEISURE

Passport or ID verification during hotel or flight check-in is already common. You can enhance online services with identity proofing for online lodging, vacation rent- als and tourism activities. It makes them more reliable and convenient.

THE PROCESS

According to European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the identity proofing pro- cess is generally based on the collection, validation, and verification of evidence. Proofing process is aiming to confirm personal identity attributes of the applicant, while its steps mitigate the risk of false identity verification.

POLICY INITIATION

Not all onboarding procedures are fit for all circumstances. Sometimes, it is more crucial to have a higher confidence in the identity of the applicant, even if the verification takes longer or costs more. On the other hand, in many cases it is acceptable to have less assurance of the identity, which allows using faster, cheaper or more expedient procedure. In either case, financial consequences of a false identity need to be considered. At the same time collection of unnecessary data needs to be avoided and the process can be neither difficult nor complex for the applicant. Risk-based approach is employed to balance things out and set process boundaries into identity proofing policy.

Identity proofing policy describes the promised level of assurance, the intended usage, required legislation compliance, admissible evidence, the process steps, the attributes and thresholds for each required feature, and records retention period.

EVIDENCE COLLECTION

Evidence may be obtained from several different sources, such as paper and electronic documents, ID cards, live information, third-party databases including official registers, and external electronic identification providers. Collected data may have different reliability according to the source and method of obtaining it. Its authenticity and integrity need to be validated against other collected evidence and known security controls.

EVIDENCE VALIDATION

The goal of the evidence validation step is to ensure that each piece of collected data is authentic and its information is accurate. Validation confirms the authenticity and validity of attributes.

BINDING AND VERIFICATION

The binding and verification process step is focused on two goals: confirmation that identity attributes and evidence relate to a unique person and determination whether the applicant is, in fact, the one that declares to be. The binding depends on the type of the collected evidence and how this evidence was validated. The binding and verification step may use the data acquired from different sources and compare them to confirm their relevance.

Additionally, this step can be supported by a human operator who confirms data in live video conference or by asynchronously checking video captured in the process. This step can also use authentication means issued internally or from a third party.

IDENTITY ASSERTION

The final decision is taken after one or more cycles of interactive steps of data collection, evidence validation and verification. The outcome of this process is the issuance of an identity assertion. Proof can take form of confirmation of the identity attributes or delivery of the requested dataset which identifies the subject. This confirmation may be absolute or it may provide a score or a percentage as an indication of the confidence level. A confidence level can accompany the entire dataset or each attribute of the dataset. Credentials could be assigned to the identity allowing reuse of identification data in other processes.

ONBOARDING SOLUTION

Remote identity proofing can be achieved by multiple methods. One of them, our remote automatic approach, is using biometric face recognition based on identity documents. It is possible due to capture, digitization and format requirements for images of faces to be used in the context of both human verification and computer automated recognition [ISO/ IEC 19794-5:2005]. It is designed to allow for the specification of visible information dis- cernible by an observer pertaining to the face, such as gender, pose and eye colour.

Digital Onboarding Solution for E-commerce, Banks, and Telecoms (DOSE) addresses such method of remote identity proofing. Put simply, DOSE is intended for automated au- thentication, identity verification and digital onboarding based on face recognition.

Identity proofing procedure can vary among provided services. Depending on particular situation, some proofing steps may be interchanged or not used at all; creating onboarding flows that integrate KYC and identity verification seamlessly into any mobile application or web. The solution can be integrated within organization once for multiple services with each service using its own policy. Various scenarios may well be accomplished using single deployed solution.The goal of the evidence validation step is to ensure that each piece of collected data is authentic and its information is accurate. Validation confirms the authen- ticity and validity of attributes and evidence.