Pitch: Tech Firms Should Provide In-Person ID Verification & Related Secure Tech Service
For security of identity, it makes little sense for companies to require people to scan and send official documents proving their ID across servers on the internet to an online company that for whatever reason has flagged online activity or presence as “suspicious.” For one, consider that the company security challenger is communicating with a person they have flagged as a possible ID thief to begin with. There’s a good chance that ID thieves or black hat hackers have or can get access to their targets’ identifying documents in other ways, so having them scan those in could worsen a possible fraud loss.
On the other hand, if it is the consumer that is required to prove ID to the company over the internet, the company asks the customer to put sensitive information at risk to do so. With constant serial hacks and thefts from online companies, institutions, and governments it is clear that the internet and its many, many, many moving parts and inroads is a sieve. Consumers cannot count on companies to keep their data safe; cannot count on the data to remain safe in transit; and cannot even trust their own devices due to persistent threats lurking and reloading through ISPs, supply chains, aged-out hardware, infected government computers, the vaunted citizen liability mess we call credit bureaus, and other attack vectors, whether the compromise is in hardware, software, supply chains, peripherals, updates, insiders, services, and or due to the human factors by which busy people cannot effectively keep up with nor run down repetitive security rabbit holes.
Rather than the above, firms should phase in face to face customer care in which physical presence with document ID confirmation can unlock accounts, troubleshoot, advise or deal with infected devices, preserve data, and other services. This may involve mutual partnerships with retail stores, banks, and other client-facing venues into which private meeting spaces can be had.
A physical presence for doing this would be a customer-loyalty investment, a marketing / upsell opportunity, and would likely save time and labor costs for the company because walking someone through a process remotely takes as much time and sometimes longer that troubleshooting in person, with physical ID, presence, and relevant device(s) available for technicians to look at.
Providing (directly or outsourcing) a face to face service desk would also cut into black hat hackers’ success rates since they rely so heavily on anonymity to conduct fraud, theft, and worse.
Finally, one fringe benefit of providing face to face service is a return to in-person human connection, respect, and dignity in part lost to the impersonal aspects of internet and phone interaction.
