Entrust Adds AI-Powered Verification to ID Platform

Entrust has added artificial intelligence (AI)-powered verification to its identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) platform.

The new offering, announced Tuesday (Jan. 21), is being introduced to respond to increasingly advanced forms of identity fraud.

“In response to these threats, Entrust IDaaS now includes AI-driven biometrics, phishing-resistant passwordless multifactor authentication (MFA), adaptive risk-based authentication (RBA), and secure digital onboarding,” the company said in a news release.

The latest feature lets biometric data be stored directly on a user’s mobile device instead of the cloud. This meets the needs of businesses that prefer on-device data storage to adhere to certain data protection regulations.

“With fraud becoming more sophisticated, it’s more important than ever that businesses establish verified identities from day one,” said Bhagwat Swaroop, Entrust’s president of digital security. “Failure to do so allows more bad actors through a business’ front door, increasing fraud risks and forcing reliance on clunky step-up authentication methods at day two and beyond.”

He added that Entrust’s facial biometric authentication — with identity verification from Onfido, the company Entrust acquired last year — lets clients confirm user identities throughout the user’s lifecycle, helping businesses answer the question: “Is this user still the same person we onboarded at day one?”

In other fraud prevention news, PYMNTS spoke Tuesday with Entersekt Chief Technology Officer Gerhard Oosthuizen, who argued for new approaches to authentication, ones that balance security concerns with a frictionless experience.

“When looking at risk-based authentication, people have traditionally looked at it as a ‘yes or no’ decision,” Oosthuizen said.

But in the “always-on” world of eCommerce, those decisions are happening in shorter and shorter windows.

As Oosthuizen said, it all needs to happen in real time — in milliseconds — but in many cases the information on which to base those decisions is limited or flawed. That leads to good transactions getting denied, or fraudsters making it past the bank’s defenses.

“Ultimately, the goal is to create an optimal experience and use the signals and the information available to let the ‘right guy’ in,” Oosthuizen told PYMNTS. “If you get it wrong, you lose that client, they stop using the product, or they stop using your card if they’ve had a bad experience.”

Also Tuesday, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster spoke with Bryan Lewis, chief executive of Intellicheck, about identification verification issues around sites like TikTok amid questions about that platform’s future.

He told Webster there isn’t enough protection when it comes to vetting individuals, and by extension, helping businesses (which rely on sites like TikTok to generate sales and subscribers) make sure their end users are legitimate.

“You can name so many websites,” Lewis said, “whether it’s TikTok or a gun manufacturer, alcohol or pornography site … so many of them just say, ‘Are you 18 or over’ or ‘Are you 13 and over? Click this button.’ There’s no proof.”