What does the Future of Digital Identity Look Like in 2023 and Beyond?

By: Jumio Corporation

Driven by the accelerated growth of digital identity initiatives across countries in Asia, and its increased use in financial and online retail applications worldwide, online identity verification is about to get even more prominent than ever. 

And, even more industries are set to leverage biometric authentication in their innovations and regulations to improve users’ experience while strengthening safeguards against cyber-attacks.

In 2023, we will see an urgent need to continuously build and maintain digital trust so as to provide users the assurance that personal credentials will be kept secure. With this in mind, here are the top four trends that businesses can expect this year (and beyond).

In 2023 and beyond, more transactions will be done with digital identity than a credit card

The financial services industry is at a turning point, where the global economy is shifting to authorizing purchases and other transactions based on user identity rather than credit card numbers. This is especially evident in Southeast Asia — where countries including Singapore and Malaysia are progressing toward cashless societies, as digital banks and the use of contactless payments proliferate. Consumers are increasingly leveraging biometric authentication to access their saved credit card information, banking apps and digital payment methods, like Apple Pay. As consumers increasingly use their identity to access and complete transactions in 2023, it’s likely we’ll see the number of transactions completed with digital identities surpass those of credit cards.

–Robert Prigge, CEO, Jumio

Social media sites will be pressured to implement rigorous age verification controls 

We saw a large push from governments to improve children’s safety online this year, with Australia and the Philippines introducing new regulations to keep the digital space safe for everyone. Singapore, too, is following in their footsteps — the government is set to roll out its Online Safety Bill next year where social media platforms will need to implement measures to limit local users’ access to harmful content and be more accountable to their users. At the same time, tech companies such as Instagram and YouTube have launched age assurance measures — implementing AI-powered or ID-based age verification programs that go beyond traditional age checks.

In 2023, social media sites will be placed under increased scrutiny for allowing minors on their platforms without parental consent. We will see more social media sites following Instagram’s footsteps in deploying security measures that accurately verify the age of their users, but the privacy vs. protection debate will continue. Digital identity verification that leverages the power of AI and biometrics will be a crucial tool to confirm users are the age they’re claiming to be. 

–Robert Prigge, CEO, Jumio

Enterprises will shift to multimodal biometrics for identity verification

The era of passwordless authentication is well underway as businesses across sectors continue to adopt biometric identity verification. Biometric verification technology has improved significantly in recent years — so much so that it’s been ingrained in many everyday tasks, like unlocking our mobile devices. Even as facial recognition technology reaches upward of 99% accuracy, fraudsters have engineered workarounds through the likes of face morphs, deepfakes, digital image manipulation and the use of synthetic masks.

–Stuart Wells, Chief Technology Officer, Jumio

These concerns will remain top of mind for enterprises heading into the new year, which paves the way for the rise of multimodal biometric adoption in conjunction with multimodal liveness. Introducing an additional level of biometric verification to the authentication process adds another layer of insulation between enterprises and malicious actors. Supplementing facial recognition with an additional biometric like voice or iris detection provides additional security for businesses seeking to verify their customers, patients, employees and other users. Additionally, adding multi-modal liveness detection further strengthens the protection the person is real. Techniques such as correlated mouth moment and speech, and detecting blood flow in the face all make the authentication process much harder to spoof.

More organizations will leverage a single, comprehensive digital identity verification vendor to expand beyond borders

The financial services industry is in a state of flux. With the rise of alternative payment methods and digital banks, the industry has never been more inclusive. Yet on the other hand, the landscape is getting saturated, and countries globally are still experiencing economic slowdowns.

–Frederic Ho, Vice President of Asia Pacific, Jumio

In the year ahead, we expect more businesses to leverage the scalability of cashless societies and digital banks as they navigate through the ever-evolving macro-environment to remain competitive and profitable. This includes expanding their businesses to other markets so as to acquire even more customers at a much lower cost that was once required.

To do so efficiently, we can expect to see companies and financial institutions turning to an integrated digital identity verification solution provider with global coverage, allowing them to save costs and resources on implementation and maintenance of multiple solutions across different markets. At the same time, they can benefit from the flexibility to scale and customize compliance workflows according to the ever-evolving fraud threats and regulatory landscape.