Yoti’s Research in Asia Shows Paramount Importance of Accurate Identity Solutions

Yoti continues to share insights from its research concerning grassroots nonprofits in the developing world, with its findings from Asia pointing to the paramount importance of accurate identity solutions that protect privacy.

Writing on the company’s blog, David Burton, a researcher with Glean, a consultancy that helped to carry out Yoti’s research, explains that the research team interviewed individuals from 11 different NGOs operating across seven countries in Asia. Echoing some of the findings from Yoti’s investigations in Africa, subjects highlighted the need for accurate documentation, with Burton asserting, “everyone agreed that bad ID solutions hold back promising projects.”

As for solutions, the research team “regularly heard that biometrics are seen as a good way of avoiding fraud and verifying identity easily” – a finding that bodes well for Yoti’s selfie-based identity solution, which uses mobile facial recognition and document reading to verify end users. But the need for such technology took on starker terms in at least some of these discussions, with interviewees pointing out that “bad ID management has the potential to directly affect the safety of people in some developing contexts,” given the risks entailed by state corruption.

Effective ID solutions thus present an opportunity to help keep people safe. Beyond that, they offer opportunities to help individuals in developing countries to access government services and other opportunities requiring reliable identity verification. And with this kind of research laying the groundwork, Yoti appears to be getting itself into position to help realize these opportunities with its NGO partners.