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“Game changing” is a phrase that is often touted in insurance circles as insurtech infiltrates the traditional boundaries that have, in the eyes of some, held the industry back for so long. It’s a term used so widely that you’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes and thinking “here we go again” – but today’s “game changer” isn’t designed to beat insurers at their own game, but instead to assist them in a £200 million battle against fraud.
Biometrics authentication as a service is what newcomer SmilePass aims to offer to insurers and financial services providers – helping protect both the companies and their customers from social engineering, fraud and theft. It uses deep learning and face matching technology to bring “selfie authentication” into customer on-boarding processes, without the risk of cyber threat exposure.
“As we leave the analogue world behind, cybercrime will become one of the greatest threats of our time,” said CEO Grant Crow. “This is particularly true for banks and insurers, who will increasingly look to biometric authentication as a tool to combat social engineering and fraud. After years spent understanding the potential, and current weaknesses, of biometric authentication, we’re confident that SmilePass is a robust solution equipped to protect businesses and their customers from social engineering and fraud - and help biometric security reach its full potential in the process.”
In short, the service will offer a two-way validation process for customers throughout their lifecycle – even for long-term relationships that insurers may have with policyholders for years. It will offer three tiers of coverage, ranging from a low-cost option with geo-tracking; to a mid-level option for unsupervised verifications; through to a premium option which it claims offers the same technology and deep learning biometrics you would expect from passport verification.
With GDPR on its way, the technology could be well-timed - data from Cifas, the fraud prevention agency, revealed that insurance identity fraud had soared 10,000% between mid-2016 and mid-2017 with UK insurers alone investing over £200 million a year to combat fraud.
