NRF On PIN-less EMV Cards And POS Fraud

The development of digital identity solutions shows no signs of slowing in the new decade, with the mobile biometrics market expected to add $28.45 billion per year in incremental growth between 2018 and 2023. Facial authentication and cloud-based subscription services are particularly popular, with applications ranging from unlocking personal smartphones to providing secure access to top-secret government facilities.

A multitude of security issues continue to plague the space, however, despite this optimistic future of digital identity. Credit card payments are increasingly enabled via EMV chips rather than magnetic stripes, but these methods frequently suffer from a lack of diligent digital identity verification. U.S. retailers that once required signatures are increasingly foregoing authentication measures of any sort, for example, even though simple PIN code requirements could curb the use of lost or stolen cards.

In the January “Digital Identity Tracker®,” PYMNTS explores the latest developments in the world of digital IDs, including new government-provided identity initiatives from Malaysia, Morocco and Ukraine, verification partnerships from Jumio and open-source digital ID initiatives that could be game-changers for identity security.

Developments From Around The World Of Digital ID

A recent study projected that the number of digital IDs in circulation — including centralized, federated and self-sovereign identities, as well as those issued by commercial enterprises and governments — will exceed 3 billion by 2025. These identities will be leveraged for a myriad of use cases, such as the purchase of age-restricted goods, and as customer verification measures for banks.

Nations around the world are continuing to implement digital ID systems. This includes Ukraine, which recently unveiled a new digital ID pilot program that will be conducted over the next six months. The initiative will help citizens access government services and partake in a nationwide census, allowing developers to test the system’s technical conditions, reliability and security.

Digital identity solutions provider Jumio, meanwhile, is partnering with Philippines-based remittance services provider I-Remit to improve the latter’s digital onboarding and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. Jumio is expected to provide authentication services for I-Remit’s IREMITX remittance platform, which allows Filipinos to transfer money within the Philippines and to select countries. The authentication platform will use machine learning, artificial intelligence and facial recognition biometrics to verify users against their government-issued ID photos.

For more on these and other digital identity news items, download this month’s Tracker.

EMV Cards Face Crucial Verification Security Gaps

EMV cards are becoming increasingly commonplace in the U.S. due to their superior security, compared to their magnetic stripe counterparts. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), however, these chip cards still have critical flaws when it comes to identity verification, as they do not require PINs in the U.S.

For this month’s feature story, PYMNTS spoke with Stephanie Martz, the NRF’s senior vice president and general counsel, about why EMV cards need PIN verification, and why a neutral third-party panel is necessary to oversee chip-card verification requirements.

Deep Dive: Digital ID’s Future Could Be Open Source

Digital identity initiatives could be crucial to providing credentials for the 1.1 billion people worldwide who lack proper ID, but many digital ID initiatives have become bogged down in development. Open-source identity programs, however, may help to close this gap, as these systems are open to the public and can be modified by anyone.

This month’s Deep Dive explores how open-source digital identity systems provide faster, easier and more secure identity credentials than their proprietary counterparts, and how countries like Malaysia and Morocco are leveraging them in their digital ID pushes.

About the Tracker

The “Digital Identity Tracker®,” done in collaboration with Jumio, is the go-to monthly resource for updates on trends and changes in the digital ID industry.