Identity verification

Identity verification is the process of confirming a person’s identity. Businesses complete ID verification for a number of reasons including to confirm users are eligible to access their services, prevent impersonation fraud, and meet regulatory requirements. Identity verification can be completed in a number of different ways. You can verify identity documents, match photo IDs to facial biometrics, and validate user-provided data against trusted sources.

One of the most common ways of verifying identity is by analyzing identity documents like passports, driver’s licences, or national identity cards. At Onfido we help businesses complete remote identity verification — most commonly by verifying documents remotely, and matching a users facial biometrics to their ID document. Here is a full list of the identity verification documents we support.

Electronic identity verification (eIDV) is the process of conducting identity verification without meeting the person face-to-face. Increasingly, users are rejecting travelling to a store or branch to provide documentation — instead choosing to sign-up for services that let them onboard and verify their identity remotely.

Many businesses are required to verify the identities of their customers by law. This is often known as know your customer (KYC) regulation. It’s most commonly required for financial services businesses and part of anti-money laundering (AML) programs to prevent fraud, money-laundering, and terrorist financing. You can learn more about how to verify identity for KYC and AML purposes in the UK, US and EU in our Compliance Manager’s Guide to Identity. 

The best way to complete ID verification is highly dependent on risk tolerance, regulatory requirements, and how much friction is appropriate. Most commonly we see businesses undertake:

• Document and biometric verification to confirm the legitimacy of a user’s identity document, and that it’s being presented by its rightful owner.
• Data validation to validate user-provided information such as their name, date of birth, and address against trusted data sources such as credit databases and electoral registers. 

You can take our interactive tour to discover all the solutions included in our Real Identity Platform.

We take great pride in working with our customers to integrate best-in-class user experiences that automatically tailor themselves to each user using Onfido Studio — our no-code workflow builder.

It’s also important to optimize the capture experience based on your service — ask for identity verification at the right time, and take care to explain to your users why it’s necessary.

Learn more in our blog: 3 ways to improve your verification experience.

ID verification is often necessary to meet non-negotiable regulatory requirements and to prevent fraud. Identity verification processes can be manual and costly for businesses to complete, especially at scale. We created the Real Identity Platform to allow businesses to:

• Harness the power of AI — enable them to onboard users in seconds without building vast manual teams
• Maximize onboarding conversion — convert more good customers by minimizing friction
• Reduce fraud costs — stop more fraud before it can impact their bottom line

Learn more in our blog: 3 ways ID verification reduces customer acquisition costs.

ID verification is always evolving because so are customer expectations, fraud techniques, and regulatory requirements. We’re always innovating to stay ahead of the curve, and deliver the best possible business results for our customers. To learn more about the future read our co-founder, Husayn Kassai’s article: What will digital identity look like in 2025? And our VP of Design, Mark Opland’s interview with Think Digital Partners.