Identity-proofing services (also called identity verification services) are used to verify a person’s identity before, during, or after registering to a system.
Before registration, the system owner may check the prospective system user’s credit history or ask them to provide scanned documents for data validation purposes.
Identity proofing during registration consists of asking the user to provide two types of information: credentials (such as their email address, phone number, password, or PIN) and information unique to them (such as biometrics and answers to security questions).
After successful registration, identity proofing happens when the user attempts to access the system or wants to recover their account. In both cases, the identity-proofing service compares the information the user entered with that tied to their identity.