Digital ID Verification: How to Avoid Common Pain-Points

In today’s digital landscape, digital identity verification (confirming an individual’s identity remotely) is crucial for nearly every online interaction. It builds trust between users and organizations while ensuring adherence to regulatory standards. 

However, it’s not without its challenges. Users grapple with slow or complex onboarding while organizations navigate evolving threats. This constant balancing act between security and usability is a make-or-break situation. That’s why understanding digital identity verification is paramount, no matter what your organization does, as it forms the cornerstone of safe, reliable, and lawful digital transactions.

So, let’s talk about the challenges you’ll face with ID verification and what you can do about them.

What is digital ID verification?

Digital ID verification is just that: verifying an individual is who they say they are, using as much identifying data as possible. This means documents (like ID cards) and digital data like biometrics. Identity verification solutions combine data checks, document verification, and biometrics to ascertain the authenticity of these elements. 

Document verification confirms the legitimacy of identification documents, while biometric data, such as facial recognition, ensures the presented documents belong to a real person. These integral components collectively create a comprehensive digital identity essential for the verification process.

What are the benefits of digital identity verification?

The right remote identity verification system means more than just better security—although it certainly does that. It can also improve the customer experience, eliminating cumbersome in-person verification to simplify onboarding. 

This reduces customer acquisition costs and defends against fraud—further reducing costs. Finally, ID verification helps with compliance with standards like KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering), which reduces fines and protects your reputation.

How does digital ID verification work?

How you go about this identity verification process depends on your organization’s needs and risk factors. As a brief overview, let’s look at some possibilities:

• Document verification relies on government-issued identity documents. This is a strong start, but it’s vulnerable to forged or stolen documents, which may not be easily detected.
• Biometric verification utilizes unique physical characteristics like fingerprints, facial recognition, and iris scans for secure verification, but it necessitates special hardware/software and could raise privacy concerns.
• Knowledge-based verification involves security questions or personal information. It adds a layer of security, but often, this information is publicly available, exposing users to identity theft.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) combines two verification methods (e.g., login and text verification). This mitigates scraping, but it can increase friction during the verification process.
• Mobile verification leverages the ubiquity of smartphones for identity verification but depends on the security of the mobile device and the associated network.

To find the right combination, you’ll need to weigh security against usability and privacy concerns and strike a balance. Implement a streamlined process, and you can trust each user’s digital identity without sacrificing service.

Common pain points in digital ID verification

Online identity verification, while vital, can cause issues. Most involve user inconvenience, privacy concerns, or (ironically) increased security risk. Addressing them is crucial to get the best customer experience when users verify their identity. Let’s dig into the most common pain points in the process.

Slow, inconvenient, and manual processes

When it comes to banking, lengthy verification times can cause frustration for users and may lead to the abandonment of the verification process, even after account opening. For example, customers often complain and opt out of 2FA because of the inconvenience it causes. 

Manual reviews can result in delays, and frequent manual interventions intended to ensure verification accuracy can be exasperating for customers and institutions. Some banks may even require physical visits for manual reviews, which adds complexity, increases costs, and can lead to customer loss. These issues underscore the importance of streamlining the ID verification process to ensure customers are protected but not inconvenienced.

Security concerns

Digital ID verification asks for sensitive information from users. This adds risk, and poorly designed verification can open the door to identity fraud. If cybercriminals bypass or manipulate the verification process or steal ID documents, they can assume someone else’s identity, potentially leading to unauthorized access, financial loss, and reputational damage.

Not to mention, verification processes must protect sensitive user data. Neglecting privacy concerns can lead to data breaches, eroding trust and causing legal complications. So, strict privacy safeguards are essential best practices in digital ID verification systems.

User experience challenges

Complex verification processes can overwhelm users, leading to frustration and potential abandonment. Users who struggle to understand the steps or requirements are less likely to complete verification successfully. That’s why Microblink offers guided feedback, making the process more intuitive.

In addition, technical issues like system errors or slow load times can disrupt the user experience and result in abandonment. These glitches undermine trust, so your IT department should prioritize an error-free verification process.

Tips to avoid common pain points

Addressing ID verification problems is mostly a matter of prevention, and doing so will pay dividends now and later. Here are some strategies for avoiding the most common identity verification issues.

Streamlining the verification process

First up, real-time data verification and API integrations with government-issued ID documents can significantly reduce verification time. These integrations enable instant validation, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience. 

Next, minimize manual interventions with tech like automated document verification. Intelligent algorithms perform automated checks and assessments to reduce errors.  A good goal is to make manual interventions the exception rather than the rule.

Enhancing security

Next, tackle security. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a powerful tool for enhancing security. By combining something the user knows (password), something the user has (smartphone), and something the user is (biometric data), MFA adds robust layers of protection. This significantly reduces the risk of identity fraud, even if one factor is compromised.

Another option is blockchain. Blockchain offers a secure and tamper-proof way to conduct digital ID verification. By recording verification transactions on a decentralized ledger, blockchain technology prevents unauthorized alterations and enhances security. It’s particularly valuable for storing and managing digital identity documents securely.

Improving user experience

User-friendly interfaces make a world of difference. Ensure your verification process is straightforward, with clear instructions and minimal steps. Utilize visual cues and feedback to guide users through the process, and consider incorporating chat support or a help center where users can get real-time guidance.

Legal and regulatory compliance

Adhering to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is essential. GDPR ensures the privacy and protection of user data during the verification process. You must implement robust data protection measures, secure data storage, and transparency in data handling to remain compliant.

You should also be aware of other regional and industry-specific regulations governing digital identity verification. These may include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for financial services or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare. Understanding and complying with these regulations is crucial to maintaining trust and adhering to the law.

Emphasizing the importance of digital ID verification

In an increasingly digital world with a dizzying array of data points and potential threats, digital ID verification is and will remain crucial. But that doesn’t mean it’s always convenient. 

Slow verification, complicated user experiences, and added security risks can make proper verification daunting. That’s why it’s important to create streamlined, intuitive processes that protect user data.

How Microblink can help

That’s where Microblink comes in. Efficient ID verification built by people and used by humans is what we do. We leverage AI-powered technologies to create verification processes that truly work, meaning you’ll know who your customers are, and they’ll know they can trust you.

To learn how Microblink can help you do digital ID verification right, contact us today.