Exclusive Interview with Frederic Ho, VP of Asia Pacific at Jumio Corporation

Cybercriminals are becoming sophisticated, even as companies ramp up their digital capabilities. The Asia Pacific saw a 168% increase in cyberattacks in just a year between May 2020 to May 2021. Bad actors can easily sell stolen personal information on the dark web to those who intend to exploit it. Jumio is the leading provider of orchestrated, AI-powered end-to-end identity proofing, eKYC, and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions. It unifies an entire set of risk and fraud detection capabilities to address identity proofing, compliance verifications, and AML use cases, so organisations don't have to deploy multiple technologies to protect their ecosystems. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Frederic Ho, VP of Asia Pacific at Jumio Corporation.

1. What are some of the challenges various industries face in terms of verification today?

In an increasingly digital world, it has become all the more important for organisations to accurately verify that users are who they say they are.

But doing so is no easy feat. For a start, cybercriminals are becoming sophisticated, even as companies ramp up their digital capabilities. It doesn't take much to circumvent security fences today. While simply asking for passwords or ID cards used to suffice, these methods are no longer sufficient in accurately verifying identities — much less someone's age — as it is now possible for fraudsters to fake someone's identity or forge an ID document with stolen personal data that are easily available on the dark web.

To top it all off, verification itself is becoming more complex than ever. Relying on innate traits, such as appearance, that we've been used to for an in-person transaction is not enough to prove identity — especially with the emerging threat where bad actors can impersonate others via manipulating video and audio. It's crucial for organisations to take a holistic approach to identity verification, bearing in mind the need to strike a delicate balance between deterring fraud and allowing legitimate users to easily access services. For instance, this can be done through advanced liveness detection technologies, which allow companies to determine and confirm the user's physical appearance behind the app simply by taking a selfie.

2. What are some implications of overly complex age checks on privacy?

Consumers have long been accustomed to giving away their personal data, whether it is to register for an online service or to help businesses provide more accurate and personalised services. And, it's the same when it comes to submitting an official document to verify that someone is of legal age — whether it be to purchase alcohol online, gamble, or simply access age-restricted content.

However, much of this information collected is a treasure trove of data waiting to be exploited, creating a potential privacy risk. If users are required to upload identification documents to every site requesting proof of identity, each time increases the chances that the information is leaked. Should the site's security be breached, the exact information used to prove the user's identity could be used to impersonate them elsewhere.

These concerns aren't unfounded. In fact, Asia Pacific saw a 168% increase in cyberattacks in just a year between May 2020 to May 2021. Bad actors can easily sell stolen personal information on the dark web to those who intend to exploit it.

Beyond just privacy, complex age verification checks can also bring about other implications — including customer drop-off. While users are demanding higher security, they are also unwilling to compromise on convenience. Tedious admin processes that slow transactions are one of the main reasons banks lose customers, and this is no different in other industries.

3. How can organisations simplify these verification processes, while making it much easier and more pleasant for clients to use their services?

Organisations must carefully assess the level of security and convenience needed for the service they are providing, which may differ between industries and product types. For instance, financial institutions will need more stringent levels of checks to verify their customers due to a higher risk of fraud and loss.

That said, verification processes can be seamless, without complicating the user experience. With the right strategy, businesses can design a workflow that benefits both their customers and the organisation, while minimising costs and security risks. There are already identity verification technologies available that can effectively and efficiently verify that users are who they say they are. Banks, for instance, are already implementing modern features such as facial recognition and liveness detection — which enables them to determine the user's physical presence behind an app — on top of ID checks to thwart impostors, reduce fraud levels, and ensure the highest levels of verification accuracy.

4. Explain how disruptive technologies like AI and modern facial recognition methods can address these issues

Disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can allow systems to make human-like decisions, and make certain processes more efficient. Manual identity checks, for example, can take hours — or days, if there's a large amount of information to plow through — causing inconvenience to consumers who needed the service urgently. In contrast, AI automates these checks and significantly reduces the time people have to wait to be onboarded.

AI can also help organisations accurately and efficiently identify and authenticate users, making sure the online user is genuine, physically present, and not a sophisticated cyberattack using deepfakes or other synthetic media. All this, without making the process restrictive or clunky.

Liveness detection is one such AI-powered solution that enables systems to detect if a person is real. It can distinguish between the imagery of a live user present at the point of capture, versus a fake from a spoofed artifact (such as a deepfake video) by identifying natural facial movements including head movement, eye blinking, mouth opening, or light reflections. More importantly, there are no additional steps needed from the user, allowing for effortless usability, while preventing fraud.

5. Kindly brief us about Jumio, its specialization, and the services that it offers

Jumio is the leading provider of orchestrated, AI-powered end-to-end identity proofing, eKYC, and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions. It unifies an entire set of risk and fraud detection capabilities to address identity proofing, compliance verifications, and AML use cases, so organisations don't have to deploy multiple technologies to protect their ecosystems — and risk adding complexity with each disparate solution.

The Jumio KYX Platform provides multi-layered, end-to-end risk detection with flexible workflows, increasing visibility by showing a holistic view of the consumer identity and any underlying risk. This allows organisations to accurately establish, maintain and reassert trust from account opening to ongoing transaction monitoring — all through a single API layer powered by AI and automation, achieving record high catch rates and low false positives while meeting regulatory compliance.

Jumio's solution uses artificial intelligence, face-based biometrics, liveness detection and machine learning to help organisations accurately and efficiently identify and authenticate users. As it requires a valid government-issued ID and a live selfie, this pairing serves as a powerful age-verification and fraud-prevention tool, especially as many minors and cybercriminals would not be able to use their own likeness in a real-time selfie, if they're using another person's ID.

Jumio's liveness detection also goes through rigorous testing to ensure that it can thwart advanced spoofing attempts (such as realistic 3D masks, and lifelike dolls, among others). For hackers to bypass these checks, it would take unimaginable amounts of investment in leading-edge technologies. As a result, this renders a secure verification process that keeps harmful content away from the underage and thwarts cyberattackers, while ensuring ease of use.

6. How is Jumio helping customers deliver relevant business outcomes through the adoption of the company's technology innovations?

To date, Jumio has carried out more than 500 million verifications spanning over 200 countries and territories from real-time web and mobile transactions in various settings. To name a few:

• For financial services, it's been used by banks (such as Nationwide Building Society) to reduce new account onboarding times and improve customer conversion..
• In the healthcare sector, Jumio's identification verification helps to verify the age and identity of online patients when it comes to account creation and refilling their digital prescriptions. It also helps to prevent fraudulent insurance claims.
• The solution is also being used by the top 10 online gaming operators in Europe, where it supports players to reduce underage gambling and friendly fraud by ensuring that the people creating the account are who they claim to be.

7. Mention some of the awards, achievements, recognitions, and clients' feedback that you feel are notable and valuable for the company.

Jumio has won a number of awards. Some recent ones include being named a gold winner for fraud prevention and silver winner for AI insecurity in the 2022 Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards, and recognized as a Representative Vendor for the fourth consecutive time in the latest Gartner Market Guide for Identity Proofing and Affirmation.

Jumio's clients have also been sharing their feedback. "With Jumio we're able to provide an end-to-end digital process for the majority of our customers. The time it takes to open an account has been dramatically reduced, but the customer experience is the greatest win," Carlo Mascia, Nationwide Building Society delivery lead, recently shared.

Jumio also recently set a record-breaking Q1, with sales growing more than 140% across the globe and powered by multiple industries, including government, financial services and mobility.