Identity Proofing
The process by which an organisation verifies that a person is who they claim to be before granting access or opening an account, typically involving document verification and liveness checks.
Also known as: identity verification, remote ID verification, IDV
Last reviewed: 10 June 2026
Identity proofing is the onboarding phase of identity management: the first-time verification that establishes a claimed identity is genuine. It spans a spectrum from simply asking for a username and self-declared information to fully supervised, in-person document inspection with biometric enrolment. Most online financial services now conduct remote identity proofing using document capture (photograph of government-issued ID), facial comparison between the document photo and a selfie, and liveness detection to confirm a live person is present.
The strength of identity proofing directly determines the resistance to synthetic identity fraud and account-factory operations. Weak identity proofing — accepting scanned documents without liveness checking, not cross-referencing against authoritative sources — creates an on-ramp for fraudsters who use stolen or fabricated documents.
Consumers interacting with identity-proofing processes should understand they are protective rather than intrusive: institutions that accept new accounts with minimal verification are more easily exploited by criminals who may then use the platform to defraud others, including the consumer themselves.