With Over 3 Million Transactions Monthly, Acuant Debuts New and Improved ID Capture and Facial Recognition Technology that Reduces Fraud While Being Customer Friendly

The new economy provides consumers with more ways of transacting than ever before including in-person and person-not present transactions utilizing web services, mobile devices and apps. With transactions becoming increasingly digital, comes the unfortunate rise and sophistication of identity fraud. We are in the age of the biggest data breaches of all time exposing consumer username and passwords to very skilled hackers and fraudsters at large. Identity verification solutions must be robust; businesses and consumers need to take steps to establish trust and ensure protection.

So what does it mean to protect your business from identity fraud today? And how do the solutions you chose affect your customer conversion/acceptance rates and tackle customer privacy concerns? Addressing these questions and the evolving landscape of the convergence of physical and digital identity is the focus of Acuant’s solutions.

Identifying your Level of Risk and Assurance

There is no one size fits all formula for identity verification solutions. The first step is for businesses to identify the level of risk they are willing to accept. For example, a financial institution will have more security concerns than a bike sharing app and a lower security threshold. Once you know what your level of acceptable risk is, you have determined your level of assurance or level of identity verification required. In the past, a simple password and Knowledge Based Authentication question (KBA) that asks something like “In what city were you born?” has been the standard. This is no longer sufficient for secure transactions. Today multi-factor authentication is recommended.

Multi-factor Authentication means that a user has successfully met 2 of 3 categories by presenting:

• Something You Have (ID or Credential)
• Something You Know (password, PIN or Answers to Questions – KBA)
• Something You Are (Biometrics: Fingerprint, Facial Recognition, Voice)

Use Cases and Considering the Customer Experience

While it is obvious that certain industries (healthcare, finance, gaming, etc.) must meet industry regulations, there is an important counterpart to consider:  customer experience. Businesses must identify the balance of security and assurance they need with the friction incurred by their customers. For example, a customer onboarding experience could be as quick and easy as scanning an ID from a mobile device or desktop scanner that will prove that an ID is not a fake. Acuant’s AssureID^TM accomplishes this in seconds using the industry’s fastest, most accurate capture technology. AssureID performs over 50 forensic tests in seconds to ensure an ID is valid. If the person is present, standing in front of an employee, this may be sufficient. Retailers, restaurants and other outlets often do a quick visual scan of ID’s, but that method is not validating an ID and does little to prevent fraud. The addition of ID scanning is a quick and easy way to add level of assurance in any environment with mobile, desktop scanner or self-service kiosk options.

What about transactions where a person is not present? These types of transactions are becoming increasingly common as people find it much more convenient transacting digitally and even use apps for things such as opening a bank account. In this instance, businesses may want a mobile capture of an ID to validate the ID and also require a biometric test such as Acuant’s FRM^TM (Facial Recognition Match). Acuant FRM is as easy as taking a selfie and comparing it to extracted biometric data contained in the government issued ID.  Results are given in seconds by matching the face biometrics of a selfie to the face image on the ID and authenticating they match. In addition, Acuant FRM provides liveness detection to prevent fraudsters from using static images. This ensures that not only does the face match, but also there is indeed a live person in front of the camera. This provides two separate authentication factors and offers a higher level of assurance- that a person possesses a valid ID and that they match the photo on the ID. There may, however, be an instance where all you require is facial match for ongoing transactions such as a car sharing service app. In this instance you want to ensure the person driving the car is the one who signed up for the program by engaging Acuant FRM each time they use a vehicle. Both workflows are simple and speedy for customers.

Whether you are capturing an ID, engaging facial recognition match or both- you can be sure that Acuant provides the most user-friendly experience with the highest speed and accuracy. Acuant provides the utmost security for local, mobile and cloud services. No images or data is stored on devices, which means that customers do not have to worry about misuse of personal information with Acuant.

The Acuant Advantage

In addition to being a leading identity verification provider for over 20 years, Acuant possesses the largest ID document library in the industry recognizing ID’s from over 200 countries (including but not limited to passports, driver’s licenses, visas and military ID’s) which enables our unparalleled accuracy ratings. Our solutions are made for mobile and desktop environments, compatible with Windows, iOS, Android, Hybrid and HTML 5 and built to allow meeting the highest level security requirements and regulations such as KYC, PII, HIPAA and AML. Download our apps to see Acuant in action and test your selfie skills with Acuant FRM!

iOS App

Android App

HTML5