Identity verification powered by advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) is vital to strengthen security and prevent fraud in government benefits programs. This is an excerpt from a conversation between e.Republic President Dustin Haisler and Jordan Burris, vice president of public sector at Socure and former chief of staff to the U.S. chief information officer. They discuss how identity is evolving and what state and local government leaders need to know about modern identity verification technology. A recording of their entire conversation can be played above.
Some say identity is the next “killer app” in government technology. What’s driving this view, and what must happen to realize that potential?
When I was in the federal government, we reframed identity as core to everything and a key to mission enablement. Identity is critical because it’s synonymous with trust. There must be a conversation about all the areas in our lives where identity comes into play. And then, we need to safeguard identity and make sure we’re using it in the way it’s intended without creating undue friction for people.
What is Socure’s value proposition on the government identity layer?
Socure was founded in 2012 on the premise that everyone should be able to prove who they are online. More importantly, people in marginalized groups should have a seamless and simple way to do so. They should not have to go to a call center every time they need to prove who they are. Socure seeks to create the nucleus of understanding on someone’s digital identity footprint so they can better assert their identity when they’re not able to engage in person. The technologies we deploy help us do that at scale while stopping bad actors seeking to disrupt it.
How are agencies handling identity verification today and why must they do more?
The first step in changing anything is recognizing the problem to be solved. Identity verification cannot be thought of in the way we’ve done it historically. You can’t ask people where they lived or the color of their car five years ago. I fail those questions all the time.
We have to look at every facet of someone’s digital identity and empower organizations to make a risk assessment that this is the right individual on the other end of the computer screen. And we have to give them the tools to do that transparently. Individuals who are deemed non-risky should get through the process as quickly as possible so they’re not waiting days, weeks or months to access critical government services.
How does Socure use AI?
Early on, our founder and chief product officer knew we needed to use machine learning at scale to see common patterns and solve problems and challenges across a whole swath of customers.
We’ve built a platform that uses predictive signals to help inform our customers on what is happening at the root level when an identity asserts itself — and whether it’s showing a pattern indicating someone has committed identity theft or completely fabricated an identity.
We also extract how the user’s device is acting. Is it acting within the bounds of a normal user and how they would engage with their phone or device? Even more importantly, we can start to look at things like biometrics of the documents that they’re using — are they tampered with, forged or fabricated? These are all things that, to the human, may be hard to discern, especially when looking through logs and patterns. But you can use machine learning or AI to solve some of these challenges at scale.
Where will AI produce big opportunities for strengthening identity security in government?
It’s becoming harder to discern who a good person is from one fabricated or made up through AI. A fake identity’s actions could be very similar to those of a real individual. It can have an image pretending to be me, even using my voice or tone.
AI is going to be our number-one tool to combat this. Anyone working in identity today who is not embracing these tools is missing a big opportunity and falling behind where the ecosystem is headed. It’s going to be paramount to understand and establish that linkage of trust for people. We’re also going to find ways to better explain what is happening so that not everyone has to be a data scientist. We can make sure the information is easily digestible for those in the business or on the front lines, ultimately improving customer experience.
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