In the digital world we live in today, it’s getting harder to verify identity in industries such as banking. We now do less and less transactions in person. No longer do we go into banks with passbook in hand and make deposits or withdrawals face to face with a bank teller. Many of us have moved from ATM transactions to digital banking.
With this move, banks have tried many approaches of 2-factor authentication, some better than others and obviously the need is there for secure forms of authentication for the users. Let me tell you how Azure is driving identity security in banking using biometric identification. By combining biometrics with artificial intelligence, banks are now able to take new approaches at verifying the digital identity of their customers and prospects.
If you don’t know, biometrics is the process of uniquely identifying a person’s physical and personal traits. These are then recorded into a database and those images or features are captured into an electronic device and are used as a unique form of identification. Some methods we use biometrics are fingerprint and facial recognition, hand geometry, iris or eye scan and even odor or scents.
Because of their uniqueness, these are much more reliable in confirming a person’s identity than a password or access card. So, how do you verify a person is who they say they are if they’re not in person? Microsoft partners are now leveraging some of the Azure platform offerings to do this—things such as Cognitive Service’s Vision API and Azure Machine Learning tools for performing multi-factor authentication in the banking industry.
The way this works is the user provides a government issued ID (a license or passport for example) and they validate it against standards provided by the ID issuer, so they’re building an algorithm for verification of that ID and putting that into a database. So, when someone submits an ID from a particular state, we know what that ID is supposed to look like and we look for all the distinguishing features of that ID.
To take this a step further, the second factor is they’re using facial recognition software on things like your phone or computer, like Face ID for the iPhone. It will take your photo, but it will also take a video of you and force you to move your head in certain motions in order validate that is it you – you’re not wearing a mask or something – and that you’re alive.
It takes a picture of your ID and matches it to your facial constructions and compares them side by side; this becomes your digital signature. This is considered extremely secure as now you have two forms of verification and you’re using biometrics. Crazy stuff when you think about it but in the digital world we live in, you must go to these lengths to verify someone’s identity when they are not right in front you.
This is still in the early phase of what we’ll see but it’s cool to see how it’s being used and will be interesting to see how it progresses in the future. We’ve got great consultants working with Cognitive Services and Machine Learning. Anything data or Azure related, we’re doing it.