BY Fast Company 2 MINUTE READ

Aimed at digitising and securing the personal identification of people, 1dentity is using sustainable technology to enable businesses to accurately identify customers. 1dentity executive Nic Meyer said this will make it easier for people to store all their secure information in the palm of their hands. 

1dentity aims to digitise and secure the personal identification information of people as well as allow for a secure space to exchange the information for the application and screening purposes of products and services with financial institutions, telecommunications companies and medical aid companies. Meyer said this included the use of artificial intelligence (AI) where the service educates itself to look for identity anomalies and other types of identity fraud. 

With Digital ID, a user can scan or use optical character reader (OCR) to scan in their ID, drivers’ licence or passport, the application will then extract the information and contact home affairs to confirm the information and return the ID photo from home affairs. Meyer said that Digital ID conducts a ‘‘liveness detection’’ to confirm that it is a person and not a digital puppet or photo while taking selfies. “It takes selfies and then compares this to the photo at Home Affairs which companies like banks can use to determine it is the person in the photo as well as confirm identification by providing an accuracy percentage of facial matching or recognition,” he said. Meyer said they are also able to perform complementary services such as bank account verification, credit checks and anti-money laundering checks. 

This enables companies to accurately identify customers while integrating data and information from different companies. 1dentity is the one-stop shop for all data and information. 1dentity is creating an environment, through collaboration for all these services to complement each other. Enabling corporates, SME’s and consumers to benefit from 1D. 

Corporate companies and SMEs identify customers and determine the risk of doing business with them, Meyer said. He said the advantage for customers include sharing information securely with companies. 1D and its partners can completely digitise the application and screening process of customers who would not need any more copies of their IDs, proof of residence documents or any other documentation. According to the company: “The full costs of acquiring, screening and storing of this type of information can be reduced to 10 percent of what it is costing at the moment. And we all know how easy it is to get hold of fake proof of residence, ID’s, etc. Who is paying for the fraud? The good consumers of course” .