Business
Internal Exposure
All businesses share exposure to identity theft and fraud in one common area – their employees. Prospective employees may apply for employment using someone else’s identity for many reasons, including:
- to hide a bad employment history,
- to hide a criminal history,
- to appear to possess job qualifications they really don’t have, or
- to hide the fact they are in the country illegally.
Hiring a background screening company to verify the background of the false identity they’ve given won’t give you anything but confirmation of the background on the person impersonated. Running fingerprints against government databases won’t tell you who they really are unless they are already registered on one of those databases.
The background screening companies who system partner with IDENTIFiD can run the biometrics of a prospective employee through our member and known fraud databases. Once flagged as having committed identity fraud with any IDENTIFiD user, they won’t be able to repeat the offense with another user, even using different identities.
Once their employees’ biometrics are registered, the business can use the same system to control employees’ access to restricted areas, files and computer log-in. Their biometrics can also be used to “sign-in” on time clocks.
Return on investment comes from better upfront screening of new employees, avoiding losing employees to immigration raids, avoiding government fines for hiring illegals, reducing exposure to employees with criminal histories, improving internal security and reducing cost of constantly replacing forgotten computer passwords.
External Exposure
Any retailer asked to extend credit to consumers is exposed to identity fraud losses. Either they carry the credit themselves or pass it on to a third party credit provider. Unlike financial institutions, however, these businesses don’t need the full IDENTIFiD service of registering their customer’s biometrics to be protected. The partial service, or VERIFiD product, consisting of only the member/fraud check and transaction record, is designed for these businesses. IDENTIFiD's system in place with these retailers can verify the identity of a new account applicant, if they are an IDENTIFiD member. If not a member, we confirm that the consumer applicant is not currently on our known-fraud database and the business has access to a biometric record of the transaction. If the transaction later proves fraudulent, that biometric will be moved to the known-fraud database; that crook will not get a clear screening again with any IDENTIFiD member, even if using a different name. This screening process across all participating companies, industries and countries will make this fraud database much more powerful and effective than any stand-alone company or industry could possibly develop.
When a customer requests access to an account or initiates a transaction, he or she submits to a split-second iris photo and/or an electronic fingerprint scan. This personal information cannot be falsified or duplicated by an imposter.
The biometric data is encrypted and sent to our system for identity confirmation. Within seconds, IDENTIFiD compares the biometrics submitted to those on file and returns a positive or negative response. Most identity thieves will take their business to less secure targets.
Our database contains only members’ biometric data and IDENTIFiD’s control numbers. Their account numbers and other personal data remain with each institution/business. This separation of identity data from the account information protects privacy and greatly diminishes the potential damage from data theft, should this ever occur.
The system is effective for verifying customers’ identities in-person or on-line.
