Self-registration, i.e., the process that allows users to create their credentials, is a common approach to onboarding users in applications. It offers users autonomy and frees from any manual backend processing. However, in some contexts, typical self-registration may be insufficient. You may need to go beyond the simple e-mail verification and use Identity Proofing services to confidently identify your users.
What is Identity Proofing?
So, your application uses Auth0 to authenticate users. They can register by providing their own credentials and profile information or access through enterprise connections. Your application can even access their profile, but how can you make sure that your users are who they claim to be? This is the goal of Identity Proofing services. By integrating them into the Auth0 login flow, you can verify their actual identity during the registration or the login process.
Using Identity Proofing services is mandatory when the user identity is a critical factor. Think of scenarios like patient onboarding in a telemedicine system, candidate registration for hiring purposes, student sign in to take an online exam, online transactions in bank and e-commerce activities. In these scenarios, you need to verify that the claimed identity matches the user's actual identity.
Check out this article to learn more about the business value of Identity Proofing services.
Meet Our Identity Proofing Providers
The Auth0 Marketplace provides you with a few integrations from our partners that help you add Identity Proofing services in your applications. You can do it by adding those integrations in the Auth0 login flow. You just need an Auth0 account and an account in our partners' platforms. The rest is just a matter of configuration.
In fact, the Identity Proofing services offered by our partners are implemented as Auth0 Rules that require a simple setup, for example, entering the provider's keys. Let's take a look at the integrations offered by some of our Identity Proofing partners.
Meet ID DataWeb
ID DataWeb offers an Identity Proofing integration based on its Attribute Exchange Network (AXN). Their service provides your application with three identity verification methods: MobileMatch, BioGovID, and Dynamic KBA. You can also configure a multi-step process for validating the user's identity with the Identity Verification Workflow.
The ID DataWeb Verification integration redirects users to the Identity Proofing workflow. It typically happens at the first user login and the validation result is shared with Auth0.
The ID DataWeb Verification page in the Auth0 Marketplace will guide you through the integration configuration.
Meet Persona
Add an additional level of assurance to your log-in experience without hurting conversion with Persona's identity verification flows via the new Persona action in the marketplace. Persona is an identity verification platform that is trusted by companies like Square, Branch, and Coursera to scalably tackle any identity challenge, from automating onboarding decisions to fighting fraud. Use the Persona action to easily customize and trigger any combination of automated verification methods based on how risky a user is after signing up or logging in for your application. Once users are verified by Persona and authenticated by Auth0, use the Persona platform to automate any follow-up action like updating your CRM or sending an email.
Meet Incognia
With the Incognia Onboarding integration, mobile apps can add real-time address verification to their onboarding processes to establish trust with new customers on day one. Through its SDK, Incognia collects anonymized location data directly from the sensors on a mobile device. Once an address is passed to Incognia, it performs a real-time address verification to determine whether the new user is currently at the provided address or has ever been to that location in the past.
The Incognia Onboarding integration is implemented as an Auth0 rule at the first user login. When executed, the Incognia Onboarding API assesses whether the new user’s location behavior actually relates to the provided address and delivers a risk assessment and supporting evidence.
Check out the Incognia Onboarding listing page for more details.
Summary
This overview of Identity Proofing shows how you can empower your users' digital trust relationship. Identity Proofing helps you prevent fraud, especially in scenarios where the user's actual identity is crucial. The Auth0 Marketplace provides you with easy-to-use integrations from the best Identity Proofing providers on the market.
All integrations in the Marketplace are pre-validated by Auth0, so you know you can trust them. Also, you can get support for the integrations directly from the experts that created them. Finally, if there is an integration that you would like to see in the Marketplace, you can request it here. You can also submit your own integration if you'd like to share it with other developers.
About the author
Andrea Chiarelli
Principal Developer Advocate
I have over 20 years of experience as a software engineer and technical author. Throughout my career, I've used several programming languages and technologies for the projects I was involved in, ranging from C# to JavaScript, ASP.NET to Node.js, Angular to React, SOAP to REST APIs, etc.
In the last few years, I've been focusing on simplifying the developer experience with Identity and related topics, especially in the .NET ecosystem.