e-KYC in Indonesia

E-KYC, or electronic Know Your Customer, is a method of verifying the identity of customers through electronic means, such as document checking, facial recognition, or biometric verification, in order to accelerate the verification process and enhance security.

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Indonesia's fast expanding digital economy and the growing popularity of online and mobile services, coupled with the high incidence of identity theft and cybercrime, makes digital identity verification crucial. To protect confidential customer information and prevent unauthorized access, businesses must strengthen their security measures and use more advanced identity verification procedures. Therefore, these days, e-KYC solutions have become essential in many industries, such as online platforms, government organizations, and financial institutions.

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‍Active Liveness for e-KYC‍

As the name implies, active liveness detection is a technology to ensure the authenticity of a user’s biometric data in which the user is required to engage in some kind of action. To check the biometric data, active liveness typically involves real-time interaction, such as asking the user to blink, turn their head, nod, or smile. Typically, the system captures multiple images from the motion and examines them to verify that it is generated by a living human and not a computer made object.

There are various benefits to active liveness for e-KYC verification. First off, by actively interacting with the user in real-time, it offers a higher level of security and makes it harder for fraudsters to use spoofing or deep fakes to sneak around the system. By compelling the user to take particular actions, this method also increases the accuracy and degree of confidence in confirming that the biometric data is authentic.

Active liveness does, however, come with some disadvantages. It could be inconvenient for users to have to carry out certain tasks in the process of verifying their identity. Furthermore, real-time engagement during active liveness could cause delays, slowering the processes of the overall onboarding experience. Finally, putting active liveness into practice can be more complex and expensive, as it might need more advanced systems.

In Indonesia, the use of active liveness has been increasing lately. It is utilized by a number of industries, including the financial, legal, and governmental sectors. Because of the importance of the data they carry, businesses that demand high priority and strict security use active liveness more frequently. For instance, active liveness can be utilized to register for government programs, check oneself in at airports, open a new bank account, and link a bank account to online shopping portals.

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Passive Liveness for e-KYC

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Passive liveness detection, on the other hand, operates in the background and requires no user intervention. Rather than asking users to perform certain actions, passive liveness analyzes the user's facial features from a photo utilizing biometric indications. These indicators include skin texture, depth, 3D face mapping, and environmental influences.

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Passive liveness has different advantages than active liveness. First, because passive liveness does not involve real-time interaction or specific user interactions, the whole process is more efficient and faster than active liveness. Second, because passive liveness requires a simpler system, implementation and operational costs can be reduced. This can make e-KYC verification more accessible and affordable for smaller businesses or startups.

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Passive liveness, however, also doesn’t come without its own disadvantages. While it may be more convenient, passive liveness might be more vulnerable to complex fraud attempts like spoofing attacks and deep fakes. Passive liveness also might not be able to offer the required level of security and accuracy in the identity verification process for industries that demand the highest level of security. Additionally, passive liveness might be perceived as a less secure procedure by both the users and regulatory authorities.

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In Indonesia, passive liveness technology has quickly become widely accepted in a variety of businesses, including e-commerce, retail, telecommunications, and more. While identity verification is frequently found in these areas, the highest level of security may not be as important as user ease of use for them. Passive liveness, for example, can be used for operations like activating SIM cards, registering membership cards, or signing in or creating new accounts on e-commerce platforms.

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Selecting Between Active Liveness or Passive Liveness

When deciding between active and passive liveness for e-KYC in Indonesia, we need to consider market demand and your customer base's preferences. Active liveness may be more appealing to industries with strict operational standards and higher security concerns, like banking and finance. However, because active liveness is more complicated, it takes longer to implement, involves more IT assistance, and can only run on servers with higher specs. Furthermore, it may also cause inconvenience for consumers, particularly those who are not tech-savvy.

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Passive liveness, on the other hand, might be a preferable choice for businesses that value user convenience in verification processes, such as those in e-commerce and digital services. Because passive liveness is simpler, it can be implemented quickly, need less IT support, and run on servers with less specification. However, it might not be appropriate for businesses and sectors that demand the highest level of security.

Therefore, in determining whether active or passive liveness is ideal for e-KYC processes, it is crucial to recognize the market need and align it with your company’s security needs and customer experience goals.

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