Who can provide remote supervised identity proofing?
“NextgenID Trusted Services Solution provides Supervised Remote Identity Proofing identity stations to collect, review, validate, proof, and package IAL-3 identity evidence and enrollment data for CSPs operating at IAL-3.”
And there are others who can provide the equivalent of IAL3, as we will see later.
How do you supervise a remote identity proofing session?
“The camera(s) a CSP [Credential Service Provider] employs to monitor the actions taken by a remote applicant during the identity proofing session should be positioned in such a way that the upper body, hands, and face of the applicant are visible at all times.”
But that doesn’t matter with me now. What matters to me is WHEN we need remote identity proofing sessions.
Governments aren’t the only entities that need to definitively know identities in critically important situations.
What about banks and other financial institutions, which are required by law to know their customers?
Now it’s one thing when one of my Bredemarket clients used to pay me by paper check. Rather than go to the bank and deposit it in person at a teller window (in person) or at an ATM (remote supervised), I would deposit the check with my smartphone app (remote unsupervised).
Now the bank assumed a level of risk by doing this, especially since the deposited check would not be in the bank’s physical possession after the deposit was completed.
But guess what? The risk was acceptable for my transactions. I’m disclosing Bredemarket company secrets, but that client never wrote me a million dollar check. Actually, none of my clients has ever written me a million dollar check. (Perhaps I should raise my rates. It’s been a while. If I charge an hourly rate of $100,000, I will get those million dollar checks!)
So how do financial institutions implement the two types of IAL3?
“If you need to initiate a funds transfer payment, an authorized signer for your account may also initiate funds (wire) transfers at any Chase branch.”
Note the use of the word “may.” However, if you don’t want to go to a branch to make a wire transfer, you have to set up an alternate method in advance.
Remote supervised
What about remote supervised transactions at financial institutions, where you are not physically present, but someone at the bank remotely sees you and everything you do? Every breath you take? And every move you make? Etcetera.
It turns out that the identity verification providers support video sessions between businesses (such as banks) and their customers. For example, Incode’s Developer Hub includes several references to a video conference capability.
To my knowledge, Incode has not publicly stated whether any of its financial identity customers are employing this video conference capability, but it’s certainly possible. And when done correctly, this can support the IAL3 specifications.
Why to use IAL3 for financial transactions
For high-risk transactions such as ones with high value and ones with particular countries, IAL3 protects both the financial institutions and their customers. It lessens the fraud risk and the possible harm to both parties.
Some customers may see IAL3 as an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle…but they would feel differently if THEY were the ones getting ripped off.
This is why both financial institutions and identity verification vendors need to explain the benefits of IAL3 procedures for riskier transactions. And do it in such a way that the end customers DEMAND IAL3.
To create the content to influence customer perception, you need to answer the critically important questions, including why, how, and benefits. (There are others.)
And if your firm needs help creating that content, Underdog is here.
Visit https://bredemarket.com/mark/ and schedule a time to talk to me—for free. I won’t remotely verify your identity during our videoconference, but I will help you plan the content your firm needs.
Why do I have a sudden interest in things that happened at Morpho nearly 10 years ago, and at Printrak over 20 years ago? I’ll explain at the end of this post.
Printrak acquires…
Let’s start by looking at my former employer Printrak. In the summer of 1996 Printrak became a publicly traded company, and had secured the four-letter ticker “AFIS” back when an automated fingerprint identification system was THE biometric solution. (Face schmace. Iris schmiris. Voice schmoice.)
But then Printrak began to get bigger.
In April 1997 Printrak acquired a Greenville, South Carolina company, TFP Inc., that manufactured mugshot systems.
Later that same year Printrak acquired SunRise Imaging of Fremont, California, a provider of microfiche scanning services.
Printrak finished the year by acquiring the computer aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems (RMS) unit of SCC Communications Corp., thus launching activities in Boulder, Colorado.
These acquisitions, costing millions of dollars each, increased the capabilities of Printrak. Several years later, I would be part of creating a “digital justice solution” that married AFIS, CAD, RMS, mugshot, and other services.
But not yet. Before that could happen, Printrak changed dramatically.
Printrak is acquired!
There used to be an online document that listed the entire negotiation history of what happened after these acquisitions, but I can no longer access that document. Instead, I found a document that lists the final results:
“ITEM 5. OTHER EVENTS On August 28, 2000, Printrak International Inc. (the “Registrant”) issued a press release regarding an agreement (the “Merger Agreement”) among Motorola, Inc. (“Motorola”), the Registrant, Panther Acquisition Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola (“Acquisition Sub”) and the Giles Living Trust UDT dated December 17, 1993, The Giles Family Foundation, and The Smith Family Revocable Trust dated October 2, 1992 (collectively referred to herein as the “Registrant’s Majority Stockholders”) pursuant to which Acquisition Sub will be merged (the “Merger”) with and into Registrant, with Registrant surviving the Merger as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola. On August 28, 2000 the Registrant’s Majority Stockholders executed a written consent of stockholders approving the terms and authorizing the execution of the Merger Agreement by the Registrant. Under the Merger Agreement, Motorola has agreed to pay $12.1406 per share for all the outstanding common stock and common stock equivalents of Registrant for an aggregate merger consideration of approximately $160 million.”
In the language above, the two “Giles” entities were controlled by Richard Giles, who had joined De La Rue Printrak and then purchased the Printrak part from De La Rue. The Smith Family Revocable Trust was controlled by Charles Smith, another Printrak employee. While Printrak was a publicly traded entity, Richard Giles held over half the shares, and therefore had the power to sell, provided that the deal received the proper approvals from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Romania, and other countries.
Why did Motorola want to acquire Printrak? Because Motorola needed a CAD product to pair with its significant business in police radios. And among Printrak’s acquisitions was a division with a CAD product, making that acquisition by far the most significant of the three acquisitions from 1997. Microfiche went nowhere, and the fact that the present company DataWorks Plus was founded in 2000 in Greenville, South Carolina is no accident.
But returning to Printrak, its growth through acquisitions made Printrak itself an acquisition target.
SCC, Sunrise Imaging, Printrak…and Motorola.
Morpho acquires…
Fast forward a few years, and a lot had happened at the Motorola company that Printrak joined. I won’t go into the history of Motorola during that decade, but by 2008 the company was shedding businesses that weren’t critically important. The CAD and RMS business was critically important, but the fingerprint business—the original pre-1997 Printrak—was not.
“In the late 1970s, a computer engineering subsidiary of France’s largest financial institution responded to a request by the French Ministry of Interior to work on automated fingerprint processing for the French National Police. Later, this company joined with the Morphologic Mathematics Laboratory at the Paris School of Mines to form a subsidiary called Morpho Systems that went on to develop a functioning [AFIS].”
Morpho Systems and its North American subsidiary were acquired by several companies in succession, the last being Safran.
And Safran thought that Motorola’s “Biometric Business Unit” would complement its existing biometric activities. So Safran purchased the unit (including me) from the willing seller Motorola, which became part of MorphoTrak.
“By 2011, Safran decided that it needed additional identity capabilities, so it acquired L-1 Identity Solutions and renamed the acquisition as MorphoTrust.”
These various acquisitions strengthened Safran’s identity and biometric capabilities, which was good because Safran’s competitors were also busy. Eventually the entire identity and security business was renamed “Morpho” after the little old French company from the 20th century. This was a major division within Safran’s empire…
Morpho is acquired!
…but Safran remained an aerospace/defense company, and Morpho was a distraction.
The point I want to make? Morpho’s growth through acquisitions made Morpho itself an acquisition target.
Motorola’s Biometric Business Unit, L-1 Identity Solutions, Morpho…and Advent International.
Incode acquires…
Now before someone slams me, I’m not making any predictions, just some observations.
Now let’s look at my former employer Incode. Unlike Printrak, Incode is not a publicly-traded firm. Like IDEMIA, Incode is held by private investors, although in Incode’s case there are multiple investors, not just one. Incode’s investors include General Atlantic, Softbank, J. P. Morgan, and others.
Lately Incode has been on an acquisition spree of its own.
Now remember that Incode’s investors didn’t invest just because they want to see cool technologies. They invested because they want to make money. And these moves potentially strenghthen Incode so that its investors may make a profit through an Incode IPO…
…or an acquisition of Incode by another entity, which would continue the consolidation of the identity/biometric industry.
To hear some people discuss remote work, they lay it on thick on the “work from anywhere” part of it. (Provided that your legal residence is in a jurisdiction where your company or your employer is authorized to conduct business.)
Imagen 4.
You know, “Here I am in a villa on the beach for the week! #livingthenomadlife”
Well, I’ve performed a lot of remote work for IDEMIA, Bredemarket, Incode, and other companies in my day, but usually not in a visitors’ bureau featured location.
Imagen 4.
Here’s where I’ve worked remotely over the last few years:
Spring 2019: a hotel in San Diego, California for IDEMIA’s Public Safety User Conference. The usual routine, spending half my time in our private command center coordinating sessions and speakers, and the other half of my time everywhere else.
Spring 2020-present: my home in Ontario, California. IDEMIA sent us home during COVID, where I worked for IDEMIA, then Bredemarket, then Incode, then Bredemarket again. The big highlight of my career was when my 25 square foot working space (as declared for tax purposes) moved from the front bedroom to the middle bedroom.
Fall 2020: a relative’s house in northern Alabama. I made vacation airline reservations before my COVID-related layoff, and it made no sense to cancel them so I went. It ended up being a working vacation, participating in an interview in which I was quoted in a German language publication, and making connections with two companies that would become Bredemarket clients.
Spring 2023: an office in Mexico City. This was an Incode offsite originally planned for the summer of 2022 but delayed. Many high points, but the low point was an earthquake drill that required us to walk down several flights of stairs…then walk back up those same flights of stairs. This was worse than the real earthquake that happened that week.
Imagen 4.
Which brings me to today and my new nomad location, a relative’s house in California. The relative is having outpatient surgery as I type this, and I’m staying overnight until he recovers.
Not exactly the romantic nomad life of exotic locations, but it definitely provides flexibility so that I can continue to work and take care of personal business.
This is a real picture. Fancy, huh?
Only problem: I forgot to bring my swimsuit.
But I will be performing some client work over the next two days.
And I could have been performing client work for you, but I guess that will have to wait until I return to my regular 25 square foot remote location. Book a meeting if Bredemarket can help you create content…from any location.
“So depending upon your needs, you can argue that”
This frame was followed by three differing answers to the “Where is ByteDance From?” question.
But isn’t there only one answer to the question? How can there be three?
It all depends upon your needs.
Who is the best age estimation vendor?
I shared an illustrative example of this last year. When the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tested its first six age estimation algorithms, it published the results for everyone to see.
“Because NIST conducts so many different tests, a vendor can turn to any single test in which it placed first and declare it is the best vendor.
“So depending upon the test, the best age estimation vendor (based upon accuracy and or resource usage) may be Dermalog, or Incode, or ROC (formerly Rank One Computing), or Unissey, or Yoti. Just look for that “(1)” superscript….
“Out of the 6 vendors, 5 are the best. And if you massage the data enough you can probably argue that Neurotechnology is the best also.
“So if I were writing for one of these vendors, I’d argue that the vendor placed first in Subtest X, Subtest X is obviously the most important one in the entire test, and all the other ones are meaningless.”
Are you the best? Only if I’m writing for you
I will let you in on a little secret.
When I wrote things for IDEMIA, I always said that IDEMIA was the best.
When I wrote things for Incode, I always said that Incode was the best.
And when I write things for each of my Bredemarket clients, I always say that my client is the best.
I recently had to remind a prospect of this fact. This particular prospect has a very strong differentiator from its competitors. When the prospect asked for past writing samples, I included this caveat:
“I have never written about (TOPIC 1) or (TOPIC 2) from (PROSPECT’S) perspective, but here are some examples of my writing on both topics.”
I then shared four writing samples, including something I wrote for my former employer Incode about two years ago. I did this knowing that my prospect would disagree with my assertions that Incode’s product is so great…and greater than the prospect’s product.
If this loses me the business, I can accept that. Anyone with any product marketing experience in the identity industry is guaranteed to have said SOMETHING offensive to most of the 80+ companies in the industry.
How do I write for YOU?
But let’s say that you’re an identity firm and you decide to contract with Bredemarket anyway, even though I’ve said nice things about your competitors in the past.
How do we work together to ensure that I say nice things about you?
By the time we’re done, we have hopefully painted a hero picture of your company, describing why you are the preferred solution for your customers—better than IDEMIA, Incode, or anyone else.
(Unless of course IDEMIA or Incode contracts with Bredemarket, in which case I will edit the sentence above just a bit.)
So let’s talk
If you would like to work with Bredemarket for differentiated content, proposal, or analysis work, book a free meeting on my “CPA” page.
Upload PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs, or Google Slides, and NotebookLM will summarize them and make interesting connections between topics, all powered by Gemini 1.5’s multimodal understanding capabilities.
With all of your sources in place, NotebookLM gets to work and becomes a personalized AI expert in the information that matters most to you….
Our new Audio Overview feature can turn your sources into engaging “Deep Dive” discussions with one click.
I uploaded the most recent version of my resume to NotebookLM.
Technically, this is not my resume; this is a PDF version of a portion of my LinkedIn profile. But my resume has similar information.
NotebookLM used the resume as source material to create a 20+ minute podcast called “Career Detective.” In the podcast, a male and a female pair of bots took turns discussing the insights they gleaned from the resume of John E. “Breedehoft.” (I use a short e, not a long e, but people can call me anything if I get business from it.)
Surprisingly, they didn’t really hallucinate. Or at least I don’t think they did. When the bots said I was deeply qualified, as far as I’m concerned they were speaking the truth.
They even filled in some gaps. For example, I used the acronyms for KYC, KYB, and AML on my resume to save space, so one of the bots explained to the other what those acronyms meant, and why they were important.
Probably the most amusing part of the podcast was when they noted that I had worked at two very large companies. (Just so you know, my resume only goes back to 2015, so Motorola isn’t even discussed.) While Incode and IDEMIA are both multinationals, I wouldn’t characterize Incode as massive.
Anyway, judge for yourself
So here’s the audio episode of “Career Detective” that focuses on…me.
By the way, I learned about NotebookLM via the Never Search Alone Slack workspace, but still need to explore NotebookLM’s other features.
First example: A couple of years ago, when consulting for a large client, I worked on a proposal with one of the client’s partners, and one of the employees in the partner organization happened to be a former coworker from MorphoTrak.
Second example: This morning I’m meeting with Gene Volfe, a former coworker at Incode Technologies (we started at Incode on the same day). We’re working on a project together that requires Gene’s demand generation skills and my content skills…which we will be employing for the benefit of another former MorphoTrak coworker.
Third example: Speaking of Incode, two of my former coworkers are reuniting at a different company. As a sign that these two know each other well, one made a point of saying to the other, “Go Bills!”
And yes, Gene, I remember how you like Google Docs…
Identity and biometrics firms can achieve quantifiable benefits with prospects by blogging. Over 40 identity and biometrics firms are already blogging. Is yours?
These firms (and probably many more) already recognize the value of identity blog post writing, and some of them are blogging frequently to get valuable content to their prospects and customers.
Is your firm on the list? If so, how frequently do you update your blog?
In most cases, I can provide your blog post via my standard package, the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service. I offer other packages and options if you have special needs.
Get in touch with Bredemarket
Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.
To discuss your identity/biometrics blog post needs further,book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. On the questionnaire, select the Identity/biometrics industry and Blog post content.
Bank of America, Euclid Avenue, Ontario, California.
Here’s a sign of the times from Ontario, California. The sign at the end of this video appears on the door of a bank branch in downtown Ontario, and basically says that if you wanted to go to THIS branch on Saturday, you’re out of luck.
Of course, that assumes that you actually WANT to go to a physical bank branch location. Unlike the old days, when banks were substantive buildings that you visited to deposit and withdraw money, now banks can be found in our smartphones.
What locational, technological, and organizational changes have taken place at banks over the last 50 years? And now that you can open an account to buy crypto on your smartphone, does your financial institution’s onboarding solution actually WORK in determining financial identity?
Three changes in banking over the last fifty years
Over the last fifty years, banking has changed to the point where someone from 1973 wouldn’t even recognize “banking” today. Stick around to see a video from a company called “Apple” showing you how to use a “wallet” on a “smartphone” to pay for things even if you’re not carrying your “chip card.” Karl Malden would be spinning in his grave. So let’s talk about the three changes:
The locational change.
The technological change.
The organizational change.
The locational change: from stand-alone buildings to partitioned grocery store sections
When I was growing up, a “bank” (or a “savings & loan,” which we will discuss later) was located in a building where you would go on weekdays (or even Saturdays!) and give money to, or get money from, a person referred to as a teller.
There was this whole idea of “going to the bank,” perhaps on your lunch hour because you couldn’t go to the bank on Sunday at midnight, could you?
The first crack in the whole idea of “going to the bank” was the ability to bank without entering the door of the bank…and being able to bank on Sunday at midnight if you felt like it. Yes, I’m talking about Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), where the “teller,” instead of being a person, was a bunch of metal and a TV screen. The first ATM appeared in 1967, but they didn’t really become popular until several years later.
For the most part, these ATMs were located at the bank buildings themselves. But those buildings were costly, and as competition between banks increased, banks sought alternatives. By 1996, a new type of banking location emerged (PDF):
The largest U.S. commercial banks are restructuring their retail operations to reduce the cost disadvantage resulting from a stagnant deposit base and stiffer competition. As part of this effort, some banks are opening “supermarket,” or “in-store,” branches: a new type of banking office within a large retail outlet. An alternative to the traditional bank office, the supermarket branch enables banks to improve the efficiency of the branch network and offer greater convenience to customers.
To traditionalists, these bank branches looked pretty flimsy. Where are the brick and (fake) marble walls that protect my cash? Heck, anyone can walk into the store and just steal all my money, right?
Well, these newfangled bank branches apparently WERE able to protect our cash, and the idea of banking right in the grocery store proved to be very popular because of its convenience.
But the changes were just beginning.
The technological change: from store sections to smartphones
As banks changed where they were located, there were technological changes also.
During the 1990s, more and more people were using home computers. As the computers and their security became more and more sophisticated, some people asked why we needed to “go to the bank” (either a stand-alone building or a partitioned area next to the cigarettes) at all. Why not just bank at the computer? So PC banking emerged.
The term “PC banking” refers to the online access of banking information from a personal computer. A solution for both personal or business banking needs, this type of financial management allows you to conduct transactions using an Internet connection and your computer in lieu of a trip to the local bank branch or the use of an ATM. PC banking enables an account holder to perform real-time account activities and effectively manage finances in a way that avoids the hassle of daytime bank visits and eliminates the postage required to pay bills by mail.
Ah yes; there was another benefit. You could use the computer to pay your bills electronically. The U.S. Postal Service was NOT a fan of this change.
As we crossed into the new millennium, the online banking ideas got even wilder. Cellular telephones, which followed a modified version of the “Princess phone” form factor, became more complex devices with their own teeny-tiny screens, just like their larger computer cousins. Eventually, banks began offering their services on these “smartphones,” so that you didn’t even need a computer to perform your banking activities.
Imagine putting the video below on 8mm film and traveling back in time to show it to a 1973 banking customer. They would have no idea what was going on in the film.
But are PC and smartphone banking secure? After all, smartphones don’t have brick or (fake) marble walls. We’ll get to that question.
The organizational change: from banks to…who knows what?
The third change was not locational or technological, but a change in terms of business organization. Actually, many changes.
Back in 1973, the two major types of banks were banks, and something called “savings & loans.” Banks had been around for centuries, but savings & loans were a little newer, having started in 1831. They were regulated a little differently: banks were insured by the FDIC, S&Ls by the FSLIC.
Everything was all hunky dory until the 1980s, when the S&Ls started collapsing. This had monumental effects; for example, this PDF documenting the S&L crisis is hosted on the FDIC website, because the FSLIC was abolished many years ago.
After savings & loans became less popular, other “banks” emerged.
Members-only associations called credit unions had started in 1864, and in the United States they had their own government-sponsored insurance, separate from the FDIC and FSLIC.
But there was one similarity between banks, savings & loans, credit unions, and payday loans. They all dealt in U.S. dollars (or the currency of the nation where they were located).
Enter the crypto providers, who traded cryptocurrencies that weren’t backed by any government. Since they were very new entrants, they didn’t have to make the locational and technological changes that banks and related entities had to make; they zoomed straight to the newest methods. Everything was performed on your smartphone (or computer), and you never went to a physical place.
Now, let’s open a financial account
Back in 1973, the act of opening an account required you to travel to a bank branch, fill out some forms, and give the teller some form of U.S. dollars.
You can still do that today, for the most part. But it was hard to do that in the summer and fall of 2020 when Bredemarket started.
Bredemarket pretty much started because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and those first few months of Bredemarket’s existence were adversely affected by COVID-19. When I wanted to start a bank account for Bredemarket, I COULDN’T travel to my nearby bank branch to open an account. I HAD to open my account with my computer.
So, without a teller (human or otherwise) even meeting me, I had to prove that I was a real person, and give my bank enough information during onboarding so that they knew I wasn’t a money-laundering terrorist. Banks had to follow government regulations (know your customer, anti-money laundering, know your business), even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.
This onboarding process had to be supported whether you were or were not at a physical location of a financial institution.
Whether you were conducting business in person, on a computer, or on a smartphone.
Whether you were working with U.S. dollars or (as crypto regulations tightened) something named after a dog or an entire planet or whatever.
How can you support all that?
Liminal’s “Link™ Index for Account Opening in Financial Services”
Back in 2020 when I was onboarding the new-fashioned way, I had no way of predicting that in less than two years, I would be working for a company that helped financial institutions onboard customers the new-fashioned way.
At the time, I estimated that there were over 80 companies that provided such services.
According to Liminal, my estimate was too low. Or maybe it was too high.
Liminal’s July 2023 report, “Link™ Index for Account Opening in Financial Services,” covers companies that provide onboarding services that allow financial institutions to use their smartphone apps (or web pages) to sign up new clients.
Account opening solutions for the financial services industry are critical to ensuring compliance and preventing fraud, enabling companies to effectively identify new users during customer registration and deliver a seamless onboarding experience. The primary purpose of these solutions is to facilitate mandatory compliance checks, with a particular emphasis on the Know Your Customer (KYC) process.
If I can summarize KYC in layperson terms, it basically means that the person opening a financial institution account is who they say they are. For example, it ensures that Vladimir Putin can’t open a U.S. bank acccount under the name “Alan Smithee” to evade U.S. bans on Russian national transctions.
Remember how I found over 80 identify proofing vendors? Liminal found a few more who claimed to offer identity proofing, but thinks that less than 80 firms can actually deliver.
Around 150 vendors claim to offer account opening compliance and fraud solutions in banking, but only 32 (21.3%) have the necessary product features to meet buyer demands.
Now I have not purchased the entire Liminal report, and even the Executive Summary (which I do have) is “privileged and confidential” so I can’t reprint it here. But I guess that I can say that Liminal used something called the “Link Score” to determine which vendors made the top category, and which didn’t.
I’m not sure how the vendors who DIDN’T make the top category are reacting to their exclusion, but I can bet that they’re not happy.
Writing about Financial Identity
As you can gather, there are a number of issues that you have to address if you want to employ identity proofing at a financial institution.
And if you’re an identity firm or financial institution, you need to provide the right information to your customers, and write it in a way that will motivate your customers to take the action you want them to take.
Speaking of motivating customers, are you with an identity firm or financial institution and need someone to write your marketing text?
Someone with 29 years of identity/biometric marketing experience?
Someone who consistently tosses around acronyms like ABM, FRVT, KYB, KYC, and PAD, but who would never dump undefined acronyms on your readers? (If you’re not a financial/identity professional and don’t know these acronyms, they stand for anti-money laundering, Face Recognition Vendor Test, Know Your Business, Know Your Customer, and Presentation Attack Detection.)
Someone who will explain why your customers should care about these acronyms, and the benefits a compliant solution provides to them?
If I can help you create your financial identity content, we need to talk.
Bredemarket 