ID verification

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, the importance of reliable and secure identity verification cannot be overlooked. From financial institutions and e-commerce platforms to sharing economy services and online communities, the need to verify IDs has become paramount to stop fraud and remain compliant. At Onfido, we’re committed to revolutionizing the way businesses verify their users’ identities. In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through the easy steps and best practices to verify IDs securely, efficiently, and with confidence.

Understand the importance of verifying ID

Verifying IDs is critical for businesses to combat identity fraud, money laundering, and other illicit activities. By accurately verifying the identity of users, organizations can build trust with their customers, maintain compliance with regulations, and safeguard their platforms from potential risks like fraud.

Choose a reliable ID verification provider

Selecting the right ID verification provider is the first step in streamlining your verification process. Onfido offers cutting-edge technology, utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of ID verification. With Onfido's advanced solutions, you can be confident in the authenticity of your users' IDs.

Collect necessary information

To verify IDs successfully, it's essential to gather the necessary information from your users. This typically includes government-issued identification documents, such as passports, driver's licenses, or national ID cards. Onfido's document verification seamlessly captures and extracts data from your customers’ IDs, making the process smooth and user-friendly.

Biometric verification for enhanced security

Enhance the security of your ID verification process by incorporating biometric verification. Onfido offers facial recognition technology, which matches a live selfie with the photo on the submitted ID. This additional layer of security ensures that the person presenting the ID is its legitimate owner.

Real-time checks and liveness detection

Real-time checks and liveness detection capabilities allow you to validate the authenticity of documents and prevent spoof attempts. Onfido Motion is an advanced technology that can determine liveness by guiding a user to complete a simple head turn left and right, thwarting fraudulent activities.

Compliance with regulations

Adhering to regulatory requirements is crucial for businesses operating in various industries. The right partner can help you navigate evolving regulatory and compliance requirements across core markets and regions. Built by a team with deep market knowledge, the Onfido Real Identity Platform helps you satisfy know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance regulations without hindering growth. 

Seamless integration with your platform

Patchworking multiple vendors is costly and confusing. Look for one vendor who can provide the matrix of ID verifications that meet your business’s needs and risk tolerance.

Scalability and global coverage

Whether you are a fast-growing startup or an established enterprise, you’ll want to be ready to scale into new markets. Onfido supports more than 2,500 document types across 195 countries, enabling global ID verification.

How to verify identities?

Verifying the identities of customers is simpler and more secure than ever. Digital identity verification solutions like Onfido enable businesses to define workflows that route customers to different types of check. They can be routed based on risk profile, or start with lowest friction methods databases and passive signals, before moving onto more secure solutions like document and biometric verification if something doesn’t look right or their credit file isn’t sufficient. Our Smart Capture SDKs guide users to capture their identity document and facial biometrics. We undertake passive analysis on their device and known fraud markers, alongside analyzing their identity document for signs of fraud, and match their face to the photo on the ID. We return results via our dashboard and API — giving businesses thorough actionable breakdowns of all the elements of a check, and returning a clear, caution, or suspected result.

Easy steps to verify ID 

At Onfido, we understand the importance of making the ID verification process seamless and user-friendly. We have designed our platform to ensure that your customers can easily verify their IDs while maintaining the highest level of security. Your users can follow these easy steps to complete the ID verification process with Onfido:

Upload ID document

The first step is simple – your customers can upload a photo of their government-issued ID document directly through your platform. Onfido's advanced technology will then extract the necessary information for verification.

Provide a live selfie or video

To enhance security and prevent fraudulent attempts, your customers will be asked to provide a live selfie. Our facial recognition technology will then compare the live selfie or  Motion video check with the photo on the submitted ID, ensuring a match.

Real-time document checks

Once the ID and selfie are uploaded, Onfido's platform will conduct real-time checks on the document's authenticity. Our award-winning AI, Atlas, has thousands of micro-models with specialized training that can detect any signs of manipulation or alterations, ensuring the document is genuine.

Liveness detection

To further prevent spoofing attempts, Onfido's liveness detection technology will confirm that the live selfie is indeed from a real person and not a photo or video. This step adds an additional layer of security to the verification process.

Do passive checks

Fraudsters use many methods to crack a business’ systems – some high-volume types of attempts include using the same face on multiple ID documents or trying multiple times to get through identity verification checks. Fraud detection algorithms are specifically taught to look out for these types of attacks, like Onfido’s Known Faces and Repeat Attempts products. 

Receive verification results

Within seconds, your customers will receive the verification results. Onfido's advanced algorithms assess the provided information against trusted data sources and check passive signals, granting a swift and accurate verification decision.

Offer a seamless onboarding experience

With Onfido's seamless integration, the entire ID verification process becomes an effortless part of your customer onboarding journey. Your customers can start using your platform or services without any delays, ensuring a positive user experience.

The benefits of verifying IDs

Verifying IDs is a critical step in establishing trust, mitigating risks, and complying with regulations for modern businesses. As a leading digital identity verification company, Onfido provides the most advanced and reliable ID verification solutions in the market. With our user-friendly approach, cutting-edge technology, and seamless integration, your business can confidently verify IDs and protect both your customers and your platform.

Find out more

Learn how the Onfido Real Identity Platform can bring value to your business. 

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