“Yoti’s platform allows end users to confirm their identities with a video selfie, leveraging biometrics for identity verification and eliminating the need to share an entire identity document.”

Yoti has found an important new ally in the promotion of its mobile ID system: CitizenCard is a UK not-for-profit organization that offers Home Office-sanctioned ID cards, particularly to let youths show their proof of age, and the organization is now offering a digital version of the card through Yoti’s free mobile app.

Straight out of the gate, the Yoti CitizenCard can be used as proof of age at the movie theater or the bar, or when buying restricted goods in stores, but it can also be used as proof of age online, with users able to share only certain pieces of information such as name and age, reducing the risk of identity fraud. Yoti’s platform allows end users to confirm their identities with a video selfie, leveraging biometrics for identity verification and eliminating the need to share an entire identity document.

While all that functionality could prove useful to many young people in the UK, it’s the future capabilities of the ID card that Yoti emphasized in a blog post announcing it, particularly with respect to what the company calls the ‘Yoti SmartChip’, a feature that will “allow people to simply tap on a card reader to prove their identity.” Ultimately, Yoti says, the app could even be used as a virtual payment card, and a digital wallet that can store train tickets and the like.

It isn’t clear when all of that functionality will arrive, but Yoti’s plans are indicative of the company’s considerable ambitions for its mobile ID card, with Yoti seeking to establish it as a new form of standard and enhanced ID, and even working with government authorities in the isle of Jersey to let citizens access government services using the Yoti app.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)