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With the introduction in 2017 of the Face ID feature on the iPhone X, Apple brought face recognition technology to the forefront for many people. While the development of face recognition technology began in the 1960s, it is the increase in computing power and new device form factors, that has enabled the technology to gain more widespread adoption. Facial recognition today is commonly used to unlock phones, open new digital bank accounts, and even used for identity proofing people at customs in airports. However it is this link between facial recognition technology and identity that is starting to raise concerns on the use of the technology in relation to security, bias and user privacy .

In digital fraud prevention, there is a fine line between flagging too many transactions as potentially fraudulent and not flagging enough. Too many false negatives means that fraudsters are slipping through the cracks, too many false positives means legitimate users and transactions are being flagged incorrectly, leading to undue friction and lost business. As digital transactions grow, 66% of businesses cite balancing friction with fraud prevention as their number one concern (IDology). Given this, it is no longer enough for authentication solutions to just prevent fraud, they need to demonstrate how they can keep false positives low as well.

The attack on Twitter this week, that resulted in the takeover of a number of high-profile accounts, including Bill Gates, Barrack Obama, Elon Musk and Joe Biden, illustrates how easy it can be for fraudsters to take over accounts. Even with multiple layers of security, accounts are vulnerable to backdoors that fraudsters exploit.

It can be a real pain to regain access to banking and shopping accounts on a new device after a smartphone has been lost or stolen. Without a device ID, SIM card or backup codes from an authenticator app to verify identity, it can take several days until the account owner is finally let back into their mobile accounts.

WhatsApp is estimated to be used by 1.5 billion people worldwide and one of the most important markets for the app is Brazil, where the app is used by 99% of the population. The recent news that the app would offer a peer-to-peer money transfer feature in Brazil was unquestionably, groundbreaking. Especially since Brazil is a country with 45 million economically active people, with one third of the population, without a bank account. The news was however short lived, since recently, the Central Bank of Brazil suspended WhatsApp as a payment method.