Experian uses alternative data to help verify international identities

PRESS RELEASE

Costa Mesa, Calif. ― Today more and more people are transient and are moving to a new country for extended periods of time. In fact, latest statistics show that there are nearly 250 million international migrants worldwide. Whether they have relocated due to work, school, or just a new life adventure, they still want and expect the companies they are dealing with to know who they are so they can have a hassle-free experience online. However, your digital identity, often founded in public and credit profile records, does not always follow you. This can make it difficult to open new accounts and make transactions and purchases.  Businesses can make it easier for consumers by using email addresses, a stable alternative data source for identity verification.

"When living or spending substantial time abroad it becomes more difficult to prove your identity," said Keir Breitenfeld, Senior Business Consultant for Fraud and Identity Solutions at Experian. "None of the information that typically establishes trust via stability or consistency migrates easily with the move including your Social Security number, credit history, or even information such as residential or work histories. However, there are alternative sources of data including emails that can help."

Email address is now an integral part of verification and identity risk assessment checks, much like name, address, Social Security number, date of birth and even phone number.  In fact, because of the opportunity to analyze a deeper set of attributes around an email account, it often proves more valuable. On average, 3.5 billion people have 1.7 billion email addresses. 91% of people keep their email for more than two years and 51 percent of people have the same email for more than ten years. Email intelligence offers companies rich profile information, even work history, that companies can use to quickly verify if a person is who they say they are.

Experian has teamed up with several industry leaders including Emailage to offer enhanced intelligence to help companies verify identities and reduce instances of fraud through their CrossCore platform. Both email verification and email attributes help strengthen the ability for businesses or agencies to perform international identity checking. There are reliable pieces information about a person that are associated with an email account including birth date, gender, location, company, and establish date. Domain and IP address can also help prove identity. For example, a company proxy usually covers a stronger reputation than an anonymous proxy and the legitimacy of the service provider/domain name also helps strengthen identity.

Breitenfield added, "As consumers we expect the places where we do business or access services to safeguard us using methods that don’t waste our time, question our intentions or force us to prove who we are each and every time. This is no different when living abroad. We launched CrossCore to help companies strengthen fraud mitigation efforts without the burden of custom integrations for every new service and international identity verification is an aspect of that."

CrossCore supports a layered approach to managing risk, allowing companies to connect multiple disparate services through a common access point. Partners offer value-added services – like international identity verification – alongside existing Experian fraud and identity solutions. Clients can choose the services they want, when they want them, to dial in the right confidence level for each and every transaction — and they can do it with the click of a button.