Trust services vendor VeriSign yesterday unveiled an online
identity verification service that allows Web customers to
establish their identities with online merchants.
The Consumer Authentication Service (CAS) provides online
businesses with instant, round-the-clock information taken from
more than 50 public and private databases to ensure a customer's
identity, said Anil Chakravarthy, director of product management
for VeriSign's enterprise group.
The information comes from government, credit agencies and
telephone number databases, Optimised scoring models are used to
help businesses quickly and easily determine whether potential
buyers are who they claim to be.
The services, which are charged to the businesses on a
per-transaction basis by VeriSign, vary with the importance of the
identity checks.
The services are not for typical retail online sales but would be
used by online auction houses such as eBay or similar businesses to
establish the identities of first-time customers seeking credit
accounts.
"It makes very good sense for the online auction house to check on
you," to reduce fraud, identity theft and other problems,
Chakravarthy said.
The service uses a predefined set of XML standards to connect to an
enterprise's customer-facing Web application. The authentication
data entered by the consumer is then routed using XML and
encryption through VeriSign's services and is checked against
varied databases to cross-verify and risk-rank the consumer
identity. Verification is then automatically sent back to the
enterprise application and to the consumer, using underlying XML
data.
The communication is secured with Secure Sockets Layer encryption
that is already built into standard Web servers and browsers.
"We take extraordinary measures not only to be highly secure, but
also we take extraordinary care to ensure the privacy of this
information," Chakravarthy said.
VeriSign previously offered such services only to online auction
vendors.