Trust Stamp
Tackling Identity Fraud with Blockchain

The financial and the real-estate industries have been at the receiving end as banks have been losing around $20 billion every year due to synthetic identity fraud. Though new regulations in the form of Know Your Customer (KYC) Anti-Money Laundering (AML) tackle the identity fraud to a greater extent, the inherent complexities involved in these regulations prove to be unsupportive for forging partnerships across the financial industry ecosystem. Moreover, the relevance of social security number as an identifier is less relevant today as it is exposed to social engineering. Trust Stamp, an innovative identity verification technology provider, is on a mission to replace the social security number with a game-changing ubiquitous biometric signature powered by blockchain.

Improving business outcomes through facial biometric-based authentication and onboarding, Trust Stamp allows financial institutions and real estate agents to automate the initial due diligence process and address compliance concerns such as KYC, AML, and personal safety risks. “Trust Stamp combines blockchain, biometrics, and artificial intelligence technologies to provide secure and immutable identity authentication,” explains Andrew Gowasack, CEO, Founder, Trust Stamp.

The firm’s proprietary AI platform for pattern recognition ensures accurate identity verification by performing a series of inspections to accurately differentiate between person’s image and a pre-recorded video, or a three-dimensional representation. The individual can enroll for Trust Stamp by using the encrypted connection in the Trust Stamp app to upload a ‘secure’ selfie as well as pictures of both sides of their driver’s license. Trust Stamp then confirms the user’s identity through facial biometrics and creates a 256-bit biometric hash from the initial biometric onboarding process information. It then provides a key after the successful enrollment. Using Trust Stamp, the users can complete their due diligence process with any financial institution by sending a selfie from their phone while attaching the biometric hash key. By utilizing the blockchain biometric identity register, financial institutions can access this biometric data and return an automated notification after the validation. “The users also have the option to share their biometric identity with other users as well as Trust Stamp’s partner institutions through SMS and email,” says Gareth Genner, Co-Founder, Trust Stamp.

The company has leveraged its biometric verification expertise to help the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) comply with the new KYC/AML regulations in the UK real estate market. Trust Stamp examined NAEA’s workflow process and identified that the verification process cost $25 for each application. Trust Stamp helped NAEA members reduce the total time of the process to five minutes and lowered the cost of identity verification to £3 by streamlining the identification process using AI. This simplified NAEA’s entire transaction chain, thus enabling a smoother experience for their customers.

Trust Stamp combines blockchain, biometrics, and artificial intelligence technologies to provide secure and immutable identity authentication

Building on the massive potential of blockchain, Trust Stamp has introduced a new plug-in, TrustedMail, which ensures email recipients of the sender’s credibility while providing biometric email encryption. When sending an email, the user’s selfie is matched with their original biometrics from enrollment; data is encrypted and sent to the blockchain with the attached biometric hash. After reconfirming the biometric hash, the email gets re-encrypted and forwarded to the recipient. The recipient can unlock the email via a private key or by their own biometric hash.

In an age when real estate agents are investing in new technologies to revolutionize real estate transactions in the U.S, Trust Stamp continues to embed high-value technology in their offerings. The company promises to lead cutting-edge blockchain implementations in the real estate arena.