Jumio Announces Addition Of Eyeball Tracking

Jumio, the creator of Netverify Trusted Identity as a Service (TIaaS), has announced the addition of eyeball tracking to Netverify’s biometrics capabilities. Eyeball tracking requires users to follow an icon on a mobile device’s screen with their eyes as it moves in a random pattern to verify identity.

According to a press release, the technology will be available to all Netverify users, including banking institutions, sharing economy providers, online gaming firms and travel companies.

With a 16 percent increase in identity fraud in 2016 impacting a record 15.4 million victims in the U.S. alone, more businesses and devices — including mobile phones and ATMs, among others — have added biometrics capabilities like fingerprint and iris scans. Fraudsters are still finding new ways to “hack” these technologies, but eyeball tracking is a technology that can be incredibly difficult for hackers to imitate.

“Fingerprint and iris scans give consumers a false sense of security,” said Philipp Pointner, vice president of products at Jumio. “Just in May, hackers demonstrated they could beat the Samsung 8 iris scan. This is a technology arms race. The addition of eyeball tracking makes it exponentially more difficult to imitate someone you’re not, giving businesses and consumers a higher level of trust.”

Jumio’s hybrid approach to verification incorporates checking ID (government-issued documents), identity (biometrics and eyeball tracking) and personal documents (bank statements and utility bills) with scrutiny from identity experts and automated technology.

“The addition of eyeball tracking makes Jumio’s Netverify the most sophisticated ID verification solution in the market,” said Stephen Stuut, CEO at Jumio. “As businesses increasingly rely on mobile interactions with their customers, it is critical that they have a way to meet Know Your Customer requirements while keeping the user experience frictionless. Jumio seeks to both combat fraud, which can cost businesses time and money to track down and remediate, while delivering a simple, fast experience that consumers expect.”