So, what is identity verification? In its rawest sense, identity verification for customers is about proving who they are so that they can go about their daily business without being interrupted. For businesses, it is about protecting their digital databases and being sure that their customers are, well, real. 

Proving the reality that you are who you say you are is all about trust. As we say in Part 1 of our Veriff Identity Fraud Report, “trust online is increasingly difficult to uphold”. 

In building trust, everyone is accountable. Take Airbnb for example. They have created a wildly successful model that is based entirely on trust. The host trusts the traveller and the traveller trusts the host. Both parties have to verify their identities and secure honest and positive reviews. Trust builds trust. 

Let’s have a look at the evolution of identity verification and break down why it is important for both businesses and consumers alike.

Identity documents have gone through quite the evolution over the past 600+ years. Paper passports have developed into having little microchips, banking that once had to be done in person can now be done at the push of a fingerprint and phones, once accessible to anyone who picked them up, can now recognise faces. 

It was once the turn of paper documents to evolve, and it is now natural that digital identity verification should follow suit and evolve as well. Processes that currently seem unfamiliar and infrequent will one day be everyday occurrences. 

This is not least because identity verification is having to stay ahead of online threats and fraud as they grow in sophistication. It appears that one is constantly chasing the other in a never-ending race where the rules are often changing. 

Over the next few years, we anticipate that we will see an increasing number of verification checks for online services like marketplaces, social media platforms, gaming, fintech, online reviews and cryptocurrencies. 

These sectors are all part of life now, and therefore real life must be verified. 

There is a balance though, in creating and adhering to compliance procedures. If online identity verification is too complicated and takes too long, then customers will understandably give up and move on. If it’s too basic, then consumers may be too wary to use it and fraudsters will be able to take advantage. 

According to CSO, data breaches exposed in excess of 5 billion records in 2018. This demonstrates how important it is for businesses to have a reliable way to confirm their customer’s identity and then keep this information secure. 

As the world evolves, anybody who uses the digital world to do anything – and we mean anything – needs the online platforms they use to have robust and trustworthy security systems in place. 

Why do companies need online verification?

As businesses strive to put identity verification systems in place, what they are really doing is embarking on a quest for real customers. Whether this is winning new customers because they are impressed with their digital processes, or whether this is building loyalty within their existing customer bases. 

As companies try to stay competitive in our progressively digital world, more and more customer-facing interactions will now occur on a screen rather than face-to-face. 

PwC’s Protect.me survey found that only 25 percent of consumers believe companies handle their personal information responsibly and 87 percent will take their business to a competitor if they don’t trust a company to handle their data responsibly. The research also found that 92% of consumers agree that companies must be proactive about data protection. 

According to The Drum, failure to build trust undermines customer loyalty and can also damage a company’s revenue. Neil Bayton, Head of UK partnerships at Trustpilot told The Drum that “On a fundamental level, a consumer will only buy from a business if they believe they will fulfil their basic promises”.

The benefits of identity verification for businesses are as follows:

Saving time and money: Digitizing the onboarding process for new customers can decrease operational costs and save a whole lot of time for everyone involved. 

Better user experience = higher conversion rates: Customers may have moved online, but they still want a great experience when they use your service. In the olden days, this would have involved a friendly smile and a steady handshake, but these days it means a fast website and user-friendly processes. 

Real-time identity verification: This allows fraud to be stopped before it even has a chance to begin. Real-time facial biometrics add extra assurances and cut out the chance of fake IDs being used. 

Regulation compliance: There are currently more than 90 countries with compliance regulations stating that it is mandatory to verify customer identities and keep identity records. As governments and trade bodies seek to implement ever-changing stringent measures to prevent fraud and other crimes within fintech services and processes, companies need to keep up to ensure they aren’t left behind. 

Why do customers need online verification?

First of all, and maybe most importantly, you don’t want some Creepy Tom stealing your identity. Honest consumers deserve to be able to carry out their business without looking over their shoulder for fraudsters. And the fraudsters? Well, we’ll keep what we think should actually happen to them to ourselves, but at the very least they deserve to be stopped!

Customers 100% need identity verification, but it does become meaningless if it is clunky, unusable and an obstacle rather than an advantageous part of the process. The easier it is, the happier everyone is, and trust can be built and nurtured for both parties. Savvy consumers deserve fast, digital & mobile friendly processes (coincidently, these words all describe Veriff’s system)!

If the businesses customers engage with and buy from have seamless identity verification processes, then there are numerous perks:

Better user experience: Digital identity verification allows whatever fintech, gaming or purchasing activity a customer is doing to be carried out at whatever time and location suits them. 

Security: It is a worrying thought that every digital action could result in unwanted fraudulent activity. By using companies that have secure identity verification systems in place, customers can sleep easy knowing that their data is being handled and stored securely.

Faster onboarding: If a customer has decided they want to use a particular service then the last thing they want is a barrier in their way. Identity verification can speed up the ‘sign-up’ process, which is a win-win for everyone.

Trust between customers and online business is hard to find yet easy to lose. Having secure identity verification steps in place builds honest relationships and loyal customers. Trust us.

We look at why identity verification is now a necessity for so many businesses and how it protects companies and consumers alike.

Digital identity verification is a part of life these days. With our online lives becoming increasingly complex and multifaceted, it is natural that our online identity also needs to be better protected. 

Why does my identity need to be verified?

As we enjoy the beautiful summer weather, and a surprising mini heatwave in Estonia, some of our team have been enjoying taking a little time for themselves. And it’s well-deserved. Of course this doesn’t mean everything stops, and with that in mind, we’re happy to share our product updates from June 2020.

Our awesome product - Assisted Image Capture - is now available for iOS users, after previously being available in our web and Android flows. This means that if your customer completes our verification flow on the iPhone, they’ll get real-time feedback about their document photos and selfie.

And that’s not the only upgrade for our iOS SDK - it is also now WCAG 2.0 AA Level Accessible. This means it can be used by those with impaired vision or motor skills, and continues our push to make the Veriff product accessible for everyone who needs it.

The big news is that Veriff Station now supports working with multiple integrations simultaneously. This means if you choose to use multiple integrations with Veriff then you’ll be able to see, search, and filter results from all of them simultaneously.

And our search function in Veriff Station got some major upgrades in general, meaning it now performs faster and works better when looking at larger volumes of results.

We’ve also made improvements to risk labels, which we mentioned in last month’s update. They now feature cross-linking, so sessions relevant to a risk label are now shown in your Station UI.

Our verification flow on the web has seen a lot of improvements made under the hood this month, with the main focus being on improving image quality. This means that when you get verified using Veriff’s mobile website on your smartphone, the flow looks even crisper and makes the process a little nicer.

Finally there’s been a small update to our Android SDK, as we’ve improved our API, which in turn simplifies our Veriff integration - and who doesn’t like it when things are made a little simpler?

That’s everything for June - it’s not quite as much as the months preceding it, but be assured there’s more to come in July and over the rest of 2020. If you want to see what we’re up to more regularly, you can check out our social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Happy Veriffing!

The summer months are in full swing, and we’re here to offer a look at what we’ve been up to in June.

This month’s updates might not be earth-shattering, but they make our product a little better, and every little bit helps.

What’s New - June 2020: Veriff Product Update

Despite the global crisis caused by COVID-19, the company has witnessed increased customer engagement and taken advantage of accelerated digitalization around the world. Last year, our verification volumes grew by 35 times, and we’ve kept up with the growth trajectory this year. However, we are also targeting profitability.  

Veriff has increased its sales volumes, continuously improving its technology, and signed agreements with major global customers in Silicon Valley. As a result of these activities, the company has earned the trust of investors and is expecting solid results for the year 2020.

Investors include Y Combinator and Mosaic Ventures from the earlier A-series investment round, but also new investors, like NordicNinja VC  and Change Ventures. 

According to Rainer Sternfeld, Managing Partner of NordicNinja VC, a Japanese-Nordic venture fund and a new investor in Veriff, said the identity verification company has shown sound performance. “Veriff has been able to significantly grow their business, successfully enter the market in the UK as well as in the U.S., and signed agreements with some Silicon Valley’s biggest players. We at NordicNinja are excited to see what the future has in store for Veriff, especially as it’s an essential service with a potential to reach every person on the planet.” 

The global pandemic has brought along significant paradigm shifts. This has created an increased demand for online identity verification, and Veriff is taking this responsibility seriously. During the pandemic, we were in close contact with our international customers, and witnessed how global tech giants as well as more traditional businesses pivoted their strategies in response to the crisis. 

Current investment brings Veriff’s total financing to 23,8 million USD and enables the company to accelerate its global growth even further. 

Veriff closed a financing round of 15.5 M USD to ramp up global growth and sales to enterprise customers prior to a larger B-series financing round planned in the future. Money was raised from both new and existing investors.

Veriff Closes 15.5 Million USD Financing Round 

What is responsible disclosure, why is it crucial to Veriff, and why should you care - well, that's what we're here to tell you.

In our effort to verify the identities of the world’s honest people, we fight fraud and cyber threats alike. Living in today’s digital society, it’s more important than ever to ensure data privacy. For us that means keeping our users’ data safe - a responsibility we don’t take lightly. It is an utmost priority that we secure our product and the data it processes because cases of data breaches and/or leaks have life-altering consequences. We strive to build trusting relationships with customers and users who know we safely handle the data they hold dear. How can we promote trust on the internet if we don’t run a trustworthy service? 

Security-wise, our mindset follows the saying “two heads are better than one”. As more researchers test our product, the stronger it becomes. We hope to bring together creative and curious minds to inspect our systems for any underlying weaknesses. That’s where you come in: we encourage you to search for, and report, vulnerabilities under our responsible disclosure program.

If you’re not security-savvy, “responsible disclosure” might sound like legal jargon. Here’s a quick rundown of what responsible disclosure means. Anyone who discovers a vulnerability has the option to either fully disclose their finding to the public or solely send it to the vendor (in this case, us). Private disclosure gives us time to patch a vulnerability before its mentioned publicly. Disclosing vulnerabilities privately is ethically responsible - hence ‘responsible’ disclosure - because a publicly known vulnerability leaves our service open to any ensuing attacks.

It’s understandably frustrating for researchers to reach out to companies with their findings, just to be told that their finding isn’t important enough to fix, or to be completely ignored. That’s not how disclosures should be handled, as it’s not productive for either party. If you ever submit a vulnerability report to us, rest assured that you will not receive a bland, automated response. One of our team members will look into your findings and will respond as soon as they can. 

We make a commitment to review every submitted report, no matter the vulnerability disclosed. Our security gurus will follow the steps you provide to repeat your results (the more detailed you are, the better). Once we can confirm the vulnerability exists, we’ll let you know and ask you to give us time to patch it. We will keep contact with you until your submission is resolved. After we fix the bug, you’re free to publish your findings and you’ll be enshrined in our Hall of Fame.

A massive thank you to those who have already reported vulnerabilities to us. We appreciate the time and effort you've taken. As a researcher, you put yourself at risk when submitting a vulnerability, but we believe you’re doing the right thing. We would like to give you the credit you deserve for your hard work and dedication to fixing security issues, and thus, making the internet a safer place.

If we expect to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape, we have to keep learning and improving. We learn not only from our own experiences and mistakes, but we learn from others. As members of the security community, we promote security research and the resulting transfer of knowledge. Responsible disclosure offers great value for all involved. Vendors receive an extra layer of security while reporters are given the opportunity to explore and potentially earn some nice rewards.

Our current Responsible Disclosure policy is the beginning of what will become our future bug bounty program. Go ahead and have a read to know what’s in the scope, and let us know what you find. Happy hacking!

Data security is paramount to Veriff, and most online companies in the modern age. This is why we want to tell you about our responsible disclosure program - and how you can help us stay secure all day, every day.

A Devotion to Security - Responsible Disclosure & Veriff

If you’ve ever sat down to watch a Hollywood movie, and it’s dealt with the travails of US teenagers or tales of global espionage, you might have seen a character produce a fake ID. These are either used for comedic effect or in a moment of tension where a character needs access to a vital room/floor/building, and more often than not everything works out well.

At Veriff identifying fake IDs is our bread and butter. So, we wanted to see: how would famous fake IDs fare in the real world? How might Veriff determine their validity or lack thereof? 

As our first example, we decided to use one of the funniest fake IDs in modern cinema - the Hawaiian driver’s license belonging to McLovin in the 2007 film Superbad.

In case you’ve never seen Superbad (and if not, you should), here’s the situation where the ID is produced (we’ve already been shown the ID in an earlier scene with his friends): the underage character Fogell, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, is attempting to buy beer in a convenience store, and shows his Hawaiian driver’s license featuring the now infamous name ‘McLovin’.

The store clerk looks at it dubiously, before the store is then suddenly robbed, leading Fogell to be knocked out and soon after have to produce the same ID in front of 2 bumbling police officers. In every instance, his ID seems to work, even on the cops.

Superbad (3/8) Movie CLIP - McLovin Buys Booze (2007) HD

But would it work with Veriff? Let’s break it down.

Name - Of course it’s the source of the comedy in the film, but single names are more common than you might think. So, as funny as it sounds, the name McLovin wouldn’t see this ID rejected outright. Even if it’s a ‘dumb, made up fairytale name’.

Dates - This is another suspicious factor, as Hawaiian licenses tend to run for only 6 years, and not 10, as shown on McLovin’s ID. The fact his birth date (at the time) put him at 25 years old, is less suspicious - people do have youthful faces sometimes!
License Number - There are problems here too, as most Hawaiian driver’s license numbers start with a capital H, followed by 8 digits. 

Style - In terms of the look of the license, this is correct for a driver’s license issued at this time. 

Barcode - The barcodes on US driver’s licenses have evolved since this type of ID was issued - they’re now on the back of the license and don’t look like a traditional barcode. 

Of course, unlike in Superbad, we aren’t standing in front of Fogell and deciding whether or not he’s really McLovin. He’d go through our verification flow online, and our fully automated process would check his license in the background as soon as his photos were uploaded.

We’d then quickly pick up on any obvious inconsistencies and the ID would be rejected without any human intervention, thanks to machine learning.

Based on the front of the ID alone, he’d be treated as suspicious, and likely rejected. And that’s got to be seen as comforting given he likely didn't pay much for his fake ID. He’s also likely doomed anyone else named McLovin to be treated as suspicious in the future.

And the ID itself has even been used fraudulently since the movie came out - but not via Veriff. Not yet anyway.

Up next - the other super spy called JB, Jason Bourne.

The first in a blog series looking at how successful fake IDs seen in movies and TV would be when they come up against Veriff.

The first in a blog series looking at how successful fake IDs seen in movies and TV would be when they come up against Veriff. Starting with arguably the most famous fake ID - McLovin.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Kateryna. Could you tell me a bit about yourself? How did you get started in your current career path and what led up to it?

First of all, I feel very humbled and honored to be interviewed. Thank you for writing this article!

If we’re talking about my journey in IT, we need to start from my school years. I was lucky enough to study in an IT-focused school. I had amazing teachers who got me into programming. I quickly started to enjoy it and learn more on my own as well.

Back then, I was participating in olympiads in informatics – competitions where participants needed to solve a series of algorithmic tasks within a limited time. I wasn’t seriously thinking about becoming a programmer though, I more felt like a kid playing around with the code.

Towards the end of my school years, I began to build my own project. It was an application that allowed students to study remotely. It was used in my own school for elementary students and in the town I lived to help children with disabilities to study at home. I submitted this project to an international contest that was held in Romania and ended up winning gold. I think realizing that I can build something that helps others, made me decide to study computer science. 

Since Kyiv Polytechnic institute is known as the best tech university in Ukraine, I decided to move to Kyiv to study computer science. I started to work as an engineer already during my first year of studies. Gradually, I got more interested in UI/UX design and switched to front-end development.

Ukraine, particularly Kyiv, currently has a bit of a tech boom going. What made you decide to move away from that and start working at Veriff?

Indeed, the technical community in Ukraine is huge and is growing day by day! For me, moving was mostly about experiencing life in a different country and working in an international environment. 

We loved how big the startup scene is in Estonia and how cozy and quiet Tallinn is. I really like that in Tallinn you can have a career in a fast-moving company while also living peacefully near the forest and seaside.

Once I decided to move to Estonia, I wanted to work in a place where I could bring value. Veriff was an easy decision because it matched what I appreciate in work and it seemed like a company where my skills could be useful.

Kateryna in Veriff office. Photo by Jake Farra. 

Was there anything really specific about Veriff that attracted you?

First of all, Veriff is building a product that is very impactful and has a lot of great professionals I can learn from. I really wanted to work for a startup in its earlier stage and see how it evolves from the inside. All in all, Veriff seemed like an ideal place for me.

How has the experience been so far working in the Veriff team?

I love it! To give some background, my team is responsible for building the verification tool. It is an application that verification specialists use to verify people online. I love that what we’re doing is impactful for the whole company and brings value to everyone else.

We have a short feedback loop and are able to iterate quickly. We’re experimenting a lot with the product – conducting A/B tests, user testings and design research to build a tool that is not only efficient, but also pleasant to use. I love how diverse my team is and how we’re collaborating together. As a team lead, I enjoy that I have enough freedom to set up a working process that is best for us.

Going back to Kyiv, what were you doing besides working as a frontend developer? You worked in education as well, correct?

I was lucky to work with React (an open-source JavaScript library) at a time when it was recently released. When it started to gain more traction and more people were interested in learning it, I was asked to create a video course on it. The videos ended up becoming popular and reached an audience of over 100,000 viewers. I also started to conduct educational webinars and workshops. 

After some time, I was then asked to design and run an in-depth online course on React and its ecosystem. I really enjoyed the process of planning everything out – lessons, homework, building a team of mentors and the process of studies. I put in effort to make it very enriching, so students wouldn’t just know the public API, but also understand how everything works under the hood. During one of the workshops, we even built the virtual DOM (the one React is using) from scratch.

We ended up running this course 3 times. It was a very valuable experience – it taught me to be more patient, gain more in-depth knowledge, and meet amazing people.

Do you think you’ll go back to teaching?

At this point I’m not really sure. It seemed almost easy before to quickly put together a 4-hour lesson, but right now it seems really hard to get back to the same pace. And although I miss teaching a lot, I also remember how much energy it required and how time consuming it really was. So, at this moment, who knows?

Besides teaching, you were also an active member of the tech community in Kyiv. Could you tell me a bit about how this started?

That’s actually also connected to teaching. After the first course finished, the students became closely connected and decided to meet afterwards to discuss all the new things happening in the front-end world.

I created an event on Meetup and over 100 people signed up out of nowhere. Since we understood that it was getting more serious, we found a sponsor, venue, and invited our friends to speak.

The first one turned out really well. We enjoyed the organization process and visitors loved the event, so we decided to continue. We started to plan more and create themes for each event. It turned into a whole thing with stickers, shirts, posters – everything to make people know that it’s something special. We always wanted to make sure everyone feels welcome. 

In time, the community was getting bigger and bigger and our team grew from 2 to 6 people. We were conducting events regularly – making larger events, inviting speakers from abroad and experimenting with the format. In the end, I remember a registration for 160 spots filled in about 2 minutes. By today, it is one of the largest tech communities in Ukraine with more than 3,000 members. 

I heard that you co-organized a conference in Ukraine as well. Could you tell me more?

Kyiv has a large and diverse tech community, but it feels kind of isolated from the rest of the world. We wanted to open the tech community and create a truly international conference in Ukraine. I was lucky to be part of an amazing team called “You Gotta Love Front-end” or YGLF for short. 

We invited speakers from all over the world, created sleek designs, marketing materials, invited local baristas, set up the venue, created production, and put together side-activities for participants.

It was a 2-day conference with around 500 people visiting it. The feedback was amazing, both participants and speakers loved it. Yet organisation required A LOT of work, in the end it turned out to be a very rewarding experience and one I fondly remember.

You Gotta Love Frontend Conference

You Gotta Love Frontend Conference video by the organizers. 

Since you’ve left Ukraine, do you know how the community is still going?

Luckily, we were able to find a great team to continue supporting the community. It seems to be going strong right now. 

In Veriff, you’ve also kicked off some internal TEX talks. Can you tell us more about those?

Just to give some context, Veriff is powered by 100+ microservices owned by different engineering teams. Each team has its own area of responsibility and is independent in making decisions, choosing tooling and adjusting work processes. Yet having isolated and independent teams allows us to have a clear focus and iterate faster. 

I just felt that we were not sharing knowledge between teams enough. That’s why we kickstarted a tech talk series called TEX to create a platform for people to share knowledge and practice public speaking skills. Since it is internal, it makes it very easy to be open about what does and doesn’t work and detail exactly how problems were solved.

Are there any other hobbies you take part in outside the tech industry?

Being so involved in all things tech, I experienced burnout. So right now I am trying to live a more slow and balanced life. 

During quarantine I’ve got really into houseplants – I now have over a 100 different plants within my house. I love to see them develop new leaves, propagate and find taking care of houseplants very peaceful and rewarding. 

Also, I have a dog, Finnick, whom I love to play with and teach new tricks to. We try to spend more time outside and go on hikes regularly. 

Overall, I am trying to find joy in simple things. Like, making coffee in the morning, watering plants, lying in bed after the alarm, and cooking food.

Last up before the interview is finished – let’s do some “quickfire” questions.

What book is a “must read” for you, and why?

If we’re talking about tech, I would recommend Pragmatic Programmer, it’s a really good book for people starting out. I remember it changed my perspective on things in the beginning of my tech career.

While I see podcasts as a good way to consume information, it’s not really my thing.

If you weren’t an engineer, what would you be?

I am a believer that you can become good in anything if you put enough effort in it. I think I might be a designer or even a cook – why not?

The one that pops in my head most often is that you can change the end result just by changing your outlook. Understanding that my perception of things defines how events turn out has made me more mindful of my feelings and actions.

Kateryna Porshnieva, sitting in her house and surrounded by greenery, took some time to discuss how and why she joined Veriff as the Engineering Team Lead and about her life in Ukraine before moving to Estonia.  

Kateryna Porshnieva, sitting in her house and surrounded by greenery, took some time to discuss how and why she joined Veriff and about her life in Ukraine before moving to Estonia.  

Veriff’s online verification service is now more accessible for everyone. With improved service accessibility, it is now possible to go through the verification process without using a mouse--just a keyboard and a screen reader. 

According to Janer Gorohhov, the COO and co-founder of Veriff, the company is focusing on inclusion when building and designing their product. “We make sure that all people, regardless of their abilities , are included and have equal access to digital services. It’s especially vital now as the COVID crisis accelerated digitalisation and online verification has become an integral part of any digital service.”

With improved service accessibility, Veriff’s website meets the AA standard of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. The new accessibility features are available in Veriff’s Software Development Kit (SDK) for Android and web applications, with iOS following shortly.

When testing the service usability, Veriff consulted with the Estonian Blind Union, a member of European Blind Union (EBU). According to the chairman Jakob Rosin, it's great that more companies are thinking of making digital services available for people with disabilities. “By today, accessibility should be a natural part of any product development and design process. Unfortunately, most digital services and apps are not accessible for people with visual impairments. It’s great to see that thanks to Veriff there are now more services available that people can independently use. When actual visits to a bank office to verify your identity can be annoying for anyone, they are almost impossible for people with disabilities because of poor physical accessibility. I do believe that this demographic  could be the most loyal customer segment for any company who is considering their needs when designing products and services,” he added.

According to the WHO, about 15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. There are about 300 million visually impaired people living on this planet, and about 39 million of them are blind and would need extra help using digital services.

AI-driven online identity verification company Veriff launches a new product accessibility feature that enables remote access to digital products and services. 

Veriff launches product accessibility features

That’s right, we're talking about the final hours before the dreaded Y2K bug took effect and changed the course of the future forever. Okay, maybe this future didn’t come to be, but at the time it’s what it seemed like everyone was expecting. 

Instead of technological downfall, the Earth simply completed its revolution and we officially entered the year 2000. Thinking back, there was almost nothing of particular note in terms of digital degradation. In fact, contrary to what some predicted, we only began to further increase our reliance on technology. 

In 2000, the majority of those with internet access were connected via dial-up so the idea of communication through video was still only a reality in sci-fi flicks. Most internet users would instead focus on instant messaging platforms such as AIM or MSN Messenger and e-mail was still in a young enough phase that it could be romanticized (like in the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail). 

Hot items for the turn of the millennium were mobile phones like the indestructible Nokia, the PlayStation 2 (fresh off the 90s success of the original PlayStation), and USB flash drives to usher in a new era of physical data sharing and replace the previous medium - floppy disks.

Need to research something? If so, you’d head to your local library or maybe take a look at an encyclopedia because “valid” information couldn’t be found on the internet at the time. Industries such as finance, legal, and medical would all shun internet use as something that was a fun fad, but not something to be taken seriously and not something that would last. 

Despite this adolescent stage, there was little doubt among many that the internet and its connection to services, communication, and information was primed to take off in a big way. 

While there were countless different factors that triggered the future adaptation and absorption of online statuses, it’s hard to argue that anything was quite as impactful as the introduction of smartphones and social media.

The importance of online and offline identities

Social media changed people’s lives in a massive way. No longer do you exist only in person, but for most of us, our online identity is just as equally important to manage and maintain. Something that started as just a simple way to stay connected with friends and families morphed into a juggernaut that could do anything from feed you news from across the world to keeping you updated with lives of celebrities – directly from the celebrities themselves.

With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the separation between online and offline began to blur even more. “Inaccessible” became a thing of the past with data coverage widening within the majority of the more technologically modern countries. 

Of course, this new reality would then go on to transform the way we live and work entirely. With network access, working from home, a café, another city, another country, etc., all suddenly became not only possible, but practical. We take advantage of group meetings from anywhere we are, meet deadlines mid-flight, and commit code in our pajamas. And no other industry felt this more than the tech-industry – the leading figures in the trade could easily share knowledge quickly across several platforms. 

With home offices taking over (something that is more relatable today than ever), an increasing amount of stress began to be put on a company’s ability to handle security and protection of intellectual data. If you’re constantly sharing data between employees through an online network, it can become easy to forego security on everything. These tiny lapses are exactly what forms the cracks in security that result in data leaks.

Private company security is just one element. There’s also the transformation of crucial services such as banking and health. What was once information stored in file cabinets with limited outside access, suddenly became data stored on servers with sometimes outdated and questionable amounts of security. The reality that people’s medical and financial information could be stolen became a very real fear.

Identity verification, trust, and where Veriff steps in

While many of us can nostalgically look back at our first form of identification, be that a passport, driver’s license or some other form of paper document, the reality is that this type of document is no longer sustainable. Since the evolution of technology happens faster each year, staying ahead of the curve and adapting is paramount. 

For this evolution to happen requires trust in the services we use. Bringing trust back to the internet and sustaining that trust has been Veriff’s goal from the start. Most of us are fully aware of the anonymity that the internet can provide, and while there are benefits to this there are also significant drawbacks when it comes to using services that need certainty that a person is who they say they are.

Lastly, but just as important, we need to ensure that the system of verification is not only foolproof, but innovative and easy to use. Veriff’s dedication to both is what makes their solution important both in the present and in years to come.

We take a lighthearted look back over 20 years of digital innovation and how our world has changed since the year 2000. And more importantly, why identity verification is now absolutely crucial.

It’s December 31st, 1999 and we’re all anxiously awaiting the stroke of midnight, the moment when technology would fail us and essentially send us into a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style life. 

How 20 years of technological innovation has changed our lives

There’s no big product launches this time around, but we’ve made improvements to Veriff Station, our SDKs and our web processes.

We’ve added risk labels! What’s a risk label? Every individual verification attempt carries its own risks, and we attach this data as labels for our clients to check. Different labels are more relevant to different clients, and they’re able to group them into different categories accordingly.

The other important thing to know about risk labels is that they’re only available for our Enterprise clients for the time being.

And we’re also moving some of our clients who’ve been with us for a while from our old system to the shiny new Veriff Station. And you can trust us, that it’s a serious upgrade. Proof that good things do come to those who wait.

This month we released our awesome NFC verification service for Android devices. NFC means near field communication - it’s the same technology that allows you to make contactless payments with your smartphone.

In this case, we utilize NFC to scan any supported ePassport to help us verify your data. Pretty cool right!

Following up on last month, we’ve now moved the selfie step to the end of our verification flow for Android users, after we made the same change for the web previously.

We’ve made updates to the way we deliver feedback within the verification process. We’ve tweaked the way feedback is delivered, so users can more easily understand how to improve their photos while being verified.

Our product has also had impressive accessibility improvements - but we’re going to be revealing more about them next week.

Finally, a couple of smaller notes - our clients can now remove the ‘Thank you’ screen at the end of the verification flow, if they want to get their customer signed up a little quicker. And we’ve also made small quality improvements to our product overall, as we always strive to do.

Thanks again for keeping up with our updates and as always if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it via our social media channels - Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter.

Wondering what Veriff have been up to in May 2020? Here’s your chance to find out!

As our office reopens, and the sun begins to shine, we’re excited to share how Veriff has improved in May.

What’s New - May 2020: Veriff Product Update

To give the readers a bit of background on yourself, can you tell me about your professional history before joining Veriff? 

For that, I would have to go back to 1995, when I was still living in Finland. I was attending university at the time and came back to Estonia for vacation… and well, I never went back. At the time, Estonia was in a really sweet spot and full of opportunities. There were only a handful of people living in the country who had really seen much of the outside world. Having lived in Finland already put me in a more beneficial position than many. 

During summer break I started searching for a job and looked into something connected to banking. Even though I didn’t know anything about banking at the time, I contacted Hansabank and offered my skills. Noticing they didn’t have a web page, I mentioned I could create one for them. They politely declined, stating that banks are serious institutions and wouldn’t be interested in a webpage (a couple years later they became fully involved in web banking). Instead of a webpage, I was offered a position working on ATMs. Then, 5 years later at the age of only 26 I was leading a team of 120 people.

Around this time, I met the people who started Skype and joined them in 2005 as Head of Quality Engineering and moved up to a Managing Director position before leaving in 2013. I then went on to a newer startup, Pipedrive, in 2015 as Head of Quality Engineering before finally joining Veriff in 2018 in the role of VP of Engineering.

One thing of note, and something I recommend others do, is for all of these companies I became a shareholder to at least some degree. It’s something that helps motivate me and gives me the extra push to ensure the company I work for excels. It helps make me feel less like just an employee and more like one of the team, pushing me to keep in mind “what is best for the company?” which is the most important question there is. 

What would you say attracted you to in Veriff in the first place?

I guess it goes back to my last days at Skype when I created a list of currently unsolved problems in the world which would determine my next adventure. Passwords and a low trust in internet security stood out as potential areas to work on.

When the founders of Veriff approached me with their plan to strengthen their engineering, I immediately knew this was something I wanted to be a part of as Veriff could solve the existing identity verification and trust issues on the internet. Having a digital identity maintained by an independent provider could give an assurance of trust to individuals that for many, governments could not. 

Although many websites offer types of identity verification, it’s still too easy to create multiple fake accounts which makes fraud overwhelming difficult to manage. I’ve already seen that many companies, both big and small, are waking up to this need for more rigid verification. There’s currently just a very clumsy, manual process that many sites use to verify individuals.

Veriff’s more manageable solution to verify a person by using something as simple as a selfie accompanied by a document picture, which then goes through an automated verification process really streamlines the whole experience. This allows providers who use Veriff to not only simplify their verification process, but also helps them to fight fraud. That ability to prevent fraud can and usually does save companies a significantly large amount of money in the end.

How would you say your experience in Veriff has gone so far?

Well, they say a year in a startup is like 5 years in an established company, so it doesn’t take long before you’re already a veteran. 2019 was a really important year for the company and for me as well. At the beginning of the year, we had only 5 engineers and by the end we were up to 80 in cross functional teams. That level of growth, getting processes in place, organizational design, setting roles and responsibilities – this is something I truly enjoy, planning everything out.

Increasing the engineering team so quickly meant that a lot of focus needed was placed into the interview process. We had to hire fast while still being able to maintain a certain status quo. I like to call this “hiring fast, but slow”, meaning you’re not hiring people just because you need a body to fill the position, but because you really believe they’re the best candidate while still keeping an efficient process in mind for rapid recruitment.

When hiring, it’s important to make sure consensus is established within a group of interviewers to prevent the chances of creating an echo chamber for yourself. At Veriff, we’ve been lucky to have a tandem approach to hiring and many other topics between myself and our CTO Jaanus Kivistik that creates a system of checks and balances necessary for quick, quality decision making.

How do you see the future of trust and identity on the internet, and what do you think Veriff’s role will be? 

I think worldwide, there is (or will be) a demand to have one’s digital identity maintained. Letting people be the owner of their stored and protected identity within an infrastructure like Veriff’s platform allows them to use it in a safe manner on the web when they need to. Veriff’s ability to convert a person’s physical identification document into an online identity that you can use anywhere is something that will happen one way or another.

The Assisted Image Capture feature that we introduced near the end of last year is one of the first steps towards making a higher quality identity online. 

At the end of the day, we try to make honest people’s lives easier while capturing all the bad apples in the process.

In November last year you, together with two other engineers, launched a podcast called “Algorütm”. What’s the story behind it? 

I was actually approached with this idea, as a way to help engage with all of the developers in Estonia. Although I’m the least development minded of the hosts, the collection of us can help highlight the interest areas perhaps better than many developers can, especially with the inclusion of guests on each episode.

Hosts of Algorütm Tiit Paananen, Priit Liivak and Sergei Anikin. Photo by Jake Farra. 

I think of it as a way to give something back, while also getting something in return. While a lot has changed over the last 25 years in IT, fundamentals are still the same. For me personally, it gives me a chance to really study and learn about each topic before we record. 

Overall, dealing with a developer audience, the feedback has been positive, but you also know that if there are any hiccups that occur on the show, we’re sure to hear about it.

We’ve covered a lot of how your professional journey has gone, but can you tell me about your hobbies? You’re known to be somewhat of a legend in the startup community in Estonia with all the different activities you partake in.

I think my interest in other areas started in Moscow in ‘92 with my first skydiving jump. I was working at a bar and went to the airfield, paid $2 and jumped out of an aircraft, simple as that. From that point, skydiving really dominated my life for quite a while until I got my pilot’s license in 2005. My carbon footprint is huge, but at least I was the one holding the steering stick.

Becoming a pilot ended up being really beneficial in my day to day work as well. All the preparations, flight plans, checklists, alternative scenarios made me appreciate planning ahead and helped to apply the same sensibilities in software testing for example. 

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What’s New - June 2020: Veriff Product Update

Veriff Closes 15.5 Million USD Financing Round