🧑‍🔬 Research Facts

The number of online applications and services is increasing, which is why the volume of personal information companies own about online users is growing exponentially too. According to a research study provided by IBM, 90% of all of the personal data in the world has been created in the last two years.

Today, the collection, storage, and selling of people’s online data is a big business. This means the individual’s rights for protecting private, personal data, or the right for knowledge where, when, and to what extent that personal data is used, is of utmost importance. One of the main regulations, introduced in Europe is the General Data Protection Law, which provides the above-mentioned rights to all EU citizens.

According to the Boston Consulting Group, in the European economy, the applications built on the use of digital identity can drive significant value growth for public and private institutions.

“At a 22% annual growth rate, the annual economic benefit is in the position of reaching €330 billion by 2020.”

The sharing of personal data in a private, controlled, secure and convenient way, is critical for the future of digital identity, where it Is implied that the user must be the owner of his personal information and decide when, where and with whom this information is shared.

Audience Characteristics, Use Cases, and Behavior

Asia-Pacific is expected to provide significant market growth for identity verification over the forecast period. In recent years, the region witnessed accelerated growth in the digital banking sector, where more fintech and newly licensed virtual banks are approaching this market to address the unbanked segment, while traditional banks are in the transformation stage to manage costs and achieve operational efficiency in this increasingly competitive landscape. However, digitization has exposed businesses to new risks, such as online identity fraud, account takeovers, and data breaches.

• Fraudsters are increasingly growing advanced with the sophisticated technologies they now use to impersonate legitimate users. Deepfake technology poses a growing identity threat by using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) for creating seemingly real videos that take a person in an existing image or video, and it replaces them with someone else’s likeness.

• More Asian companies are integrating real-time liveness detection capabilities into their eKYC systems that ensure the remote user is physically present and can defend against spoofing attacks. As the digital economy grows, multi-factor biometric identity verification and certified liveness detection technologies are trending to evolve accordingly, to better serve and address the changing security needs of businesses and consumers.

• India experienced a rapid increase in cybercrime registration, with the country ranking fifth in terms of the overall DNS hijacks. According to Gemalto, India accounts for 37% of the global breaches in terms of records compromised or stolen. With the increasing number of malware and ransomware attacks in the country, it states a significant factor in driving the adoption of identity verification solutions.

• Furthermore, in China, in March 2020, China Everbright Bank (CEB) announced a blockchain-based supply chain finance solution by Ant Financial. By implementing Ant Financial’s Duo Chain technology, China Everbright Bank intends to improve the security of SCF, and eliminate fraudulent transactions. As reported by Sina, the Duo Chain platform allows users to complete identity verification and electronic signatures with CEB, while recording all relevant transactions to a distributed ledger for tracking purposes.

• Furthermore, in March 2020, the government of Singapore is preparing for the transition to a facial recognition program, which will eliminate the need for ID cards by 2022. The announcement of the installation of Photo kiosks in government agencies across Singapore will effectively inhibit the growth of the market.

Customer Attitudes towards Digital Identity

A report conducted by Onfido in UK, USA, Germany, and France to which 4000 people responded, have the following attitudes and expectations from digital identity: Here are the report highlights:

• The way customers access your services has never been more important. For many, digital is fast becoming the only available channel. We’re accessing more digitally than ever before.

• People are accessing more online. Roughly 60% of people are accessing more services online since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• People are dissatisfied with the way their digital identity is handled. Currently, businesses aren’t meeting their expectations.

• Frustrations around digital identity lead to abandonment. And younger generations are more likely to abandon than older generations.

Customers’ number one concerns are now focused on privacy and security.