Identity Verification for Developers: Best Practices

Identity verification (IDV) is a core component of secure, compliant, and user-friendly applications. It protects developers, and their clients, by confirming a user is who they claim to be - and therefore safeguards all stakeholders and platform integrity.

It’s increasingly essential that developers not only embed IDV best practices into the design and delivery process, but balance compliance and user experience in order to optimise platform performance from the outset.

Let’s dig deeper into the what, why, and how of the identity verification process for developers:

What is identity verification and why does it matter?

Identity fraud is one of the fastest growing crimes globally. A record 421,000 cases were filed to the National Fraud Database last year, a rise of 13%.  This is the largest annual increase in fraud type filings ever recorded by Cifas.

Identity and Verification (ID&V) is a critical process for developers to ensure the individuals or entities using their platforms and applications are who they claim to be, and that they pose no threat.

The IDV process typically involves collecting and verifying official documentation, such as government-issued identification or proof of address. This process is designed to prevent fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes, as well as comply with regulatory requirements.  Critically for developers, building in IDV best practices can build greater levels of user trust and platform confidence

The IDV process can take different forms depending on the context, but for developers it typically means building in a robust suite of multi-factor authentication (MFA) processes, as well as document verification, biometric authentication, behavioural data analytics, and database checks.

Why does this matter for developers?

It matters for a range of reasons, ultimately all of which ensure they architect and deploy resilient, user-friendly platforms and applications:

• It’s critical to the design and delivery of secure user journeys.
• Boost resilience and prevent of sophisticated fraud tactics such as synthetic user identities and account takeovers.
• Mitigate of compliance, legal, financial, and reputational risks.
• In collaborative environments, it’s also a crucial tool for verifying team members and therefore controlling access to code, tools, and production systems.

Why developers should own identity verification

Whilst developers might think IDV falls under a product compliance or assurance function, it is increasingly critical that they take ownership of embedding IDV into platform and application builds for several reasons:

• They're building compliant, regulated platforms that require robust KYC, KYB, AML, and anti-fraud and even player/user safety mechanisms.
• Automated IDV checks are crucial for scalability.
• They’re responsible for crafting frictionless, secure onboarding and user journey experiences, and limiting drop offs or user abandonment.

Balancing user experience (UX) with protection and compliance

IDV, whilst essential, can also be a point of friction in the user experience.  Slow, cumbersome and excessively intrusion IDV processes can lead to user friction and undesirable levels of abandonment.  

In fact, our research highlights just how complex this can be for developers:

• 38% of users abandon the onboarding process.
• User experience tops the poll as the biggest challenge facing compliant application and platform use
• 53% of users abandoned the sign-up process because they felt uncomfortable with the IDV process.

But when they do experience secure, uncomplicated, and fast IDV it dramatically increases the user experience. The key is to simplify IDV processes (global document and biometric checks, and real-time monitoring) through developer-centric APIs and Software Development Kits (SDKs) - all with compliance baked in.

What does a best practice, UX-friendly compliant IDV process look like?

• Avoid slow or opaque process, instead harness real-time data-driven IDV processes
• Avoid file uploads, instead utilise instant mobile camera document and age verification
• Avoid self-declared personal information and instead automatically extract and process Personal Identifiable Information (PII) including name, address, and date of birth from scanned documents
• Avoid human error and outdated information and instead access extensive third-party document libraries to prefill sign up applications
• Avoid the risk of synthetic user identities, and instead harness facial comparison powered by liveness technology to identify potential fraudsters or bots with a single selfie.
• Avoid regulatory compliance failures, and instead build in automated KYC, KYB and AML checks and fraud prevention tools
• Avoid damaging risk appetite and instead embed risk scoring

The implications of getting it wrong: the regulations developers need to understand

Beyond UX best practices, IDV is often a non-negotiable regulatory and legal requirement - especially in the financial services, banking, professional services, insurance and gaming worlds.  

Regulatory compliance isn't optional it guides how IDV must function. Developers should be aware of regulations including KYC, AML, data privacy laws, and cyber security legislation, as well as industry specific legislation and of course secure development and coding practices.

The consequence of getting IDV wrong include penalties and legal issues, which could slow down development schedules and add tech debt, as well as substantial fines and other costs associated with reputational damage.

In contrast, get it right and it translates to accelerated onboarding, faster time to value, abandonment and user friction reduction, enhanced security and vulnerability mitigation, reduced exposure to fraud and financial crime, and enhanced regulatory compliance.  Ultimately this creates safer and more trustworthy development environments.

Selecting the right IDV partner is critical for developers

Choosing the right identity verification partner is vital to ensuring developers strike the right balance between enhancing security, whilst limiting friction in the UX.

Key considerations include:

• Can matching thresholds be customised to take complete control over the risk groups you consider satisfactory, and match verification levels to user types and geographies?
• Is ID verification supported by mobile SDKs in multiple frameworks, API end points for web journeys, and a web portal for data analysis, remediation, and secure auditability.
• Is the configuration flexible – can document verification be used alongside facial comparison - or use them independently for maximum flexibility?
• Can automated regulatory compliance checks – KYC, KYB, AML be deployed as part of a wider IDV process?
• Does the partner provide global coverage and compliance credentials?
• Does the provider utilise a secure token to authenticate API requests?
• Is there a sandbox environment for safe testing and experimentation
• Is there the capability to create API clients in preferred programming languages?
• Can IDV services be bundled in any way desired?
• Does the partner utilise two plus two checking - taking two pieces of information about the person and matching them against two different data sources?

What next?

Identity verification is more than just a compliance checkbox, it’s foundational for building trusted, secure, and user-friendly applications. Developers must therefore treat identity verification processes as core to application architecture, not an afterthought

By embracing best practices from secure integration to smooth UX and leveraging developer-focused platforms, developers can embed IDV into platform and application design and delivery confidently and efficiently.

Find out why FullCircl offers the ultimate in developer-friendly IDV. Get in touch or head over to our developer space.