A massive shift is happening in the way people prove their identities. From banking to healthcare to gaming, as more business moves from the physical world to the digital world it’s become essential for organizations to determine that the person on the other end of the screen is who they say they are and to keep fraudsters at bay.
Using advanced technologies like biometrics, automation and artificial intelligence, Jumio pioneered digital identity proofing by allowing users to take a photo of their identity document (ID) and a selfie, from which Jumio verifies the person’s identity in real time. But as we drive toward the next wave of identity verification, the days of pulling out your driver’s license may soon be over.
What is a digital identity?
A digital identity is a reusable, electronic proof of identity issued by a trusted authority with a known level of assurance. It can be stored in a smart wallet on your mobile device and used in person and online for a variety of use cases across different industries. A digital ID provides much greater privacy and data protection than a traditional form of identification (such as a passport or ID card), because it’s cryptographically secured and allows you to release just the necessary data to the vendor.
For example, if you want to buy alcohol or gamble, you shouldn’t have to share your date of birth with the vendor or disclose how old you are — they just need to know that you’re over the legal age. Furthermore, you might not want the vendor to have access to your driver’s license number, home address or other personal details like height and weight. Maintaining control over our personal information — who has it and where it is shared — is a key component to reusable digital identity.
On the other hand, when you open a bank account you will need to share more data to help identify yourself beyond what’s on your driver’s license, such as a utility bill to prove your residence. A digital ID can contain all of this data, enabling identity verification for all scenarios, from just proving you’re of legal age to extended data verification that proves you’re not a fraudster trying to steal from this account. Details that aren’t required can be kept private, which provides a huge benefit in fraud prevention and in reducing identity theft and other exploitation of personal data.
Streamlined identity verification
Another advantage of a digital identity is that you only need to go through the conventional identity verification process one time (for example, submitting a driver’s license, taking a selfie and uploading proof of address) when the digital identity is issued. After that, you can simply submit the digital identity whenever you need to prove your identity, such as when you set up a new account or during authentication when you sign in to a highly secure app.
Today, a separate verification process with varying levels of KYC and AML is required every time you create an account with a different merchant. This process is inefficient and gives you no control over your data. With a reusable digital identity, you only need to verify yourself once and then use that digital ID every time you sign up for a new service. This is much more efficient and gives you full control over which data you share.
Who issues digital identities?
Digital identities are issued by government programs (such as eIDAS, Bank ID and Singpass) and increasingly by private identity providers who are developing their own identity ecosystems. Additionally, the World Wide Web Consortium recently announced that decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are now a W3C standard. According to a Gartner report, it’s estimated that decentralized identities will be used by 25% of all bring your own identity (BYOI) logins by 2023.
It’s clear that the ability to accept digital identities will become a core requirement of any identity and access management (IAM) strategy. As more and more digital identities become available from governments, private companies and self-sovereign service providers, businesses will either have to integrate with each issuer or use a platform that can accept them all.
One solution for all your digital identity needs
That’s where Jumio comes in. During onboarding, we can verify digital identities from issuers around the globe with the same level of assurance as the physical IDs we verify today. As a Jumio ID Verification or Identity Verification customer, there’s nothing else you need to do — just tell us which digital IDs you want to accept, and we do the rest. And if you want to issue your own digital identities for your customers, you can take advantage of our partnerships with technology providers who use Jumio for identity verification as part of their issuance services.
Leading the future of digital identity
Jumio has long been the leader in online identity verification and is well positioned to become the leader in digital identity as well. In addition to developing functionality to enable our customers to verify digital identities from trusted sources, including eIDAS digital wallets, we are helping to drive the conversation about policy and standards. We are co-chairing a working group at the FIDO Alliance, and we are in conversations with the Accountable Digital Identity Association, Decentralized Identity Foundation, Trust Over IP Foundation and more.
Our vision is to promote interoperability to ensure users have a seamless customer experience and can use their digital identity everywhere — only sharing what they want to, when they want to. At the same time, with the ever-increasing rate of data breaches and account takeovers, cybersecurity is of the utmost importance in the development of these initiatives and is top of mind for us. Smart, reusable, portable and highly secure digital identities are the future of identity proofing, and Jumio is proud to be leading the way.
