Coronavirus tax relief scams prove we need better ID verification

New ID verification (IDV) solutions are emerging that revolve around mobile phone ownership and possession together, thereby detecting both stolen numbers and fraudulent numbers when performing a phone number check.

Such solutions thwart online impersonation in real time without any special pre-registration and will be of interest to all organisations relying on verified identity to allow user engagement – which means pretty much every organisation out there right now, when in-person verification is more or less out of the question.

Boku’s new white paper makes the case that current online user verification techniques are at risk from malefactors who acquire users’ personal data to impersonate them online. And as this story in the New York Times shows, the problem of user impersonation is getting even worse in these times of crisis.  Adam Lee, Chief Product Officer at Boku, says the online industry will move to adopt enhanced phone number verification as a new standard for user verification.

Personal data is simply too easy to obtain. Organisations have tried to respond by moving to user ID confirmation through secondary factors like biometrics, or PIN numbers mailed to home addresses. However, as our recent blog makes clear these techniques can be cumbersome and time-consuming, and may require access to forms of registration not widely available at present.

At Boku, we have been providing this kind of ID verification (IDV) solution centered on the mobile number for years – Boku Match. Using Boku Match, a user’s mobile phone number becomes a route to two-factor ID verification that can be performed remotely and instantly.

Boku Match uses the records of mobile operators and other authoritative sources both to verify that the user’s name and address matches and also to match the mobile number, preventing a fraudsters’ number from being used. And because possession of a mobile number can be verified immediately, the user’s identity can be confirmed on the spot via both a knowledge and possession check.

Best of all, Boku Match only requires the addition of a mobile phone number to the user’s registration flow – and mobile numbers are usually already included in the registration process.

Click here to find out more about Boku Match, one of the world’s first IDV solutions focused on mobile numbers.

You can also visit www.boku.com/identity-solutions for more.