In the fast-growing selfie onboarding space, social media platform X stole the show this week with its confirmation that it will enable premium users to verify their identity by uploading images of their official ID and their face. But the week also delivered further developments showing the continuing rise of selfie onboarding around the world:
In Africa
iiDENTIFii revealed that it has been working with three South African banks to implement a biometric onboarding process in an effort to help get the country off of a ‘grey list’ maintained by the global anti-money laundering organizations Financial Action Task Force. The latter plans to review its inclusion of South Africa on the list in January of 2025, giving the country time to demonstrate its commitment to AML.
iiDENTIFii’s solution uses face biometrics for identity verification, with a ‘4D Liveness’ solution that flashes different colored lights on the user’s face. “Over the next 18 months, we believe the full impact of this solution will be visible and hopefully play a part in shifting the needle on the greylisting decision,” said COO Murray Collyer.
In America
iDenfy, meanwhile, acquired an atypical customer in the remote identity verification market. Beyond the Pines Productions, a video production equipment rental company based in West Palm Beach, Florida, is using iDenfy’s ‘Magic Link’ and selfie-based onboarding solutions.
Beyond the Pines plans to implement iDenfy’s Magic Link into an automated email system for online rentals, delivering to end users a link that reroutes them to a digital identity portal, where they’ll be asked to upload photos of their government-issued ID and submit a selfie scan. Before this, iDenfy’s most recent new customers were in the FinTech and crypto spaces.
In the Skies
Alaska Airlines announced the launch of a mobile passenger identity app allowing US and Canadian passport holders to bypass the check-in process for international flights. The ‘Mobile Verify’ system operates through the Airside Digital Identity app for Android or iOS, which asks users to enroll by submitting a selfie photo and a picture of their passport’s photo page, and by holding their phone over the passport’s back cover to enable the app to read the passport’s embedded chip. Airside was acquired by the selfie onboarding specialist Onfido earlier this year.
It’s a more elaborate process than the commercially-focused ones outlined above, but one fit for air travel, where identity verification plays a particularly important role with respect to security. As such, it helps to illustrate the versatility of selfie onboarding, and the different ways that this mobile identity technology can be conceptualized as it continues its global ascent.
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September 1, 2023 – by Alex Perala
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