Trend report - Identity verification in 2022

A new year calls for new predictions…

The realm of identity verification continues to evolve and grow, particularly with the developments that were brought fluidly into daily use through the pandemic. With technological advancements constantly being made, it’s inevitable that identity verification solutions will continue to grow in importance and intuitiveness in 2022.

Let’s take a look at five major trends we expect to see in the new year.

1. Digital identities become the norm

One effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was that people and governments have, by and large, embraced using digital solutions to demonstrate their identities and vaccination status to businesses and government facilities.

Many governments had introduced digital licence and identity solutions prior to the pandemic to some success - but the pandemic meant there was more impetus for a digital identity (and associated vaccination status/passes) solution to be created, made widely available to citizens, and used by them on a regular basis. Many governments introduced apps that citizens could download and store their details on in order to gain access to certain facilities or services.

People have now become accustomed to identifying themselves using their mobile phones to demonstrate their identity and vaccination status, and governments have become equally accustomed to leveraging this technology in a useful and accessible manner. We expect to see continued development in the space of digital identities in 2022, and continued uptake of the functionality to ease public life.

1. Increased regulation

Frauds and scams have multiplied during the pandemic as more people interacted and purchased online. Regulators are trying to keep up with new scam methods by updating rules and laws to combat this scourge. In 2022 we expect to see more regulation around conducting checks and verifications on transactions in order to protect vulnerable customers.

Regulators are also attempting to keep up with the proliferation of new financial service offerings and digital assets like cryptocurrencies, digital exchanges and NFTs. For example, the European Union introduced their eIDAS (electronic identification and trust services) legislation back in 2014 to govern a range of services, including online identity verification of individuals and businesses and also the verification of electronic documents. They will need to continue to develop new standards and regulations for new forms of electronic identification as they arise.

We expect to see more knowledge sharing and standardisation in regulations between countries in 2022. Many regulators have already collaborated to release new technical specifications in identity proofing and trust services, and these specifications will likely impact other Know Your Customer (KYC) applications in anti money laundering (AML) and non-AML use cases across the globe.

1. Frictionless experiences

As financial services and other businesses introduce identity verification tools to digitally verify their customers, users will demand and expect frictionless experiences from businesses and avoid those that continue to have clunky processes.

We have already seen the advent of this through the proliferation of digital, online-only banks that have streamlined their processes and made it simple for users to sign up and complete basic tasks, and we expect to see it spread to other industries ripe for disruption. Security is important to customers, but so are smooth systems and processes.

1. Global verification

As the world begins to open up again and individuals travel around the world more freely, identity verification will become more global, including individuals showing digital proof of their vaccination when entering new countries and returning to international transactions and currency.

We expect that individuals will embrace the opportunity to travel as the effects of the pandemic become more normalised and this will mean the continued trend of verification systems needing to be accepted and accessible globally.

1. Automation

Identity verification providers will continue to make full use of the latest automation technologies in order to provide clients with faster verification results in 2022. These automated procedures will also ensure that users are more accurately identified and verified.

In 2021, at least six European countries and the UK joined in to allow automated biometric identification for AML use cases, and we believe this will set a trend for adoption and implementation by other nations in 2022.