Identity Enhanced report

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This guide presents a technical overview of Onfido's Identity Enhanced report.

Introduction

The Identity Enhanced report validates an applicant's address, date of birth, name, national ID number and mortality (where applicable) by cross-referencing their details against a range of verified databases. The report is typically used for "Know Your Customer" (KYC) purposes. For example, if you are providing a financial service.

For applicants in the United States, the Identity Enhanced report can also match the Social Security Number, either the full 9 digits or the last 4. Where possible, we recommend customers provide Onfido with this data for a better match rate and more complete results.

For applicants in Canada and Hong Kong, better match rates can be obtained by providing Onfido with consent to request information from additional databases (such as credit agencies and telephone databases). Please contact your CSM to set up this consent.

For applicants outside of the United Kingdom and outside of the United States, the Identity Enhanced report can also match some national ID numbers when supported. For more details, you can review the full list of countries with recommended national ID numbers in our API reference documentation.

The report result breakdowns indicate which of the applicant's details were positively matched, as well as the underlying source or sources of that database match.

The Identity Enhanced report will be run in the country of the applicant's address. Please make sure that the country is supported (see next section).

Supported countries for Identity Enhanced

You can review the full list of supported countries for Identity Enhanced reports in our API reference documentation.

Please note that the list of supported countries for Identity Enhanced reports is different from the overall list of documents supported by Onfido: you can review that list separately.

Sources used for Identity Enhanced reports

Fuzzy matching

Onfido's third-party sub processors utilize fuzzy matching on the name and address fields during identity record searches. This is because names and addresses can be provided in many different ways, and errors in data submission or collection can often occur. Fuzzy matching allows a more accurate confirmation of a person's identity during a record check by capturing data variations.

For example, accepted data variations could include:

• An applicant named "Catherine Stanley" enters their name as "Catherine Stamley" or "Kate Stanley"
• An address is entered as "1/26 Rowland Close" or "Rowland Close, 26a"

Report logic

The Identity Enhanced report will return match results in different ways, depending on the address of the applicant.

If the applicant's address is in the UK:

• "result": "clear"

  • the applicant is not found in mortality lists AND
  • at least one match on the applicant's name and current address, and a match on the applicant's name and date of birth (either in the same or different source) OR
  • 2 matches on the applicant's name and current address from 2 different sources

• "result": "consider"

  • the applicant is found in mortality lists OR
  • only one match on the applicant's name and current address or name and date of birth OR
  • no matches are found

The above follows the definition of 2+2 as per the JMLSG Guidelines 2014 Section 5.3.69.

More details regarding the structure of the Identity Enhanced report for the UK and an example result can be found in our API reference documentation.

If the applicant's address is outside of the UK:

• "result": "clear"

  • at least one source matches the applicant's name and current address

• "result": "consider"

  • the name and date of birth is matched, but no name and address matches are found

• "result": "unidentified"

  • no matches are found

More details regarding the structure of the Identity Enhanced report outside the UK and an example result can be found in our API reference documentation.

If the applicant's address is in the US and the SSN or the last 4 digits of the SSN are provided:

• "result": "clear"

  • at least one source matches the applicant's name and address, AND the last 4 digits of the SSN are matched

• "result": "consider"

  • no name and address matches are found OR
  • no SSN match

• "result": "unidentified"

  • no matches are found

More details regarding the structure of the Identity Enhanced report for the US and an example result can be found in our API reference documentation.

Notes:

• Mortality: only checked in the UK
• Number of addresses: as per JMLSG definitions, this check will only attempt to find a match using the applicant's current address

Building your own report logic

You can (optionally) build your own logic around report results. In other words, you can establish criteria in your own systems that are dependent on the outcome of the Identity Enhanced report.

For example, you may require matches to be found on 2 or more sources and at least 1 match on the applicant's name and current address.

In this example, you would add criteria of:

1. >=2 against total_number of sources under the total_sources sub-breakdown that is under the sources parent breakdown
2. clear against the result value under the address parent breakdown

Below is a partial Identity Enhanced report result with some comments to help explain this:

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/json

...

  "breakdown": {
    "sources": {
      "result": "clear",
      "breakdown": {
        "total_sources": {
          "result": "clear",
          "properties": {
            "total_number_of_sources": "3" ## --< ADD ">=2" CRITERIA HERE>
          }
        },
      }
    },

    "address": {
      "result": "clear", ## --< ADD "clear" CRITERIA HERE>
      "breakdown": {
        "credit_agencies": {
          "result": "clear",
          "properties": {
            "number_of_matches": "1"
          }
        },
        "telephone_database": {
          "result": "clear",
          "properties": {}
        },
        "voting_register": {
          "result": "clear",
          "properties": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "date_of_birth": {
      "result": "clear",
      "breakdown": {
        "credit_agencies": {
          "result": "clear",
          "properties": {}
        },

...

Identity Enhanced Report task

Similar to other Onfido reports, the Identity Enhanced report should be added as an Identity Report task to a Studio workflow from the Workflow Builder.

When constructing a Studio workflow, an Identity Report task can draw input data from a Document Report or Autofill task, information extracted from a Profile Data Capture task or from any global workflow input data that has been configured in the Studio Workflow Builder.

Below you will find an illustrated example of a Studio workflow running an Identity Enhanced report:

More information about report tasks can be found in our Studio Product Guide.

Identity Enhanced Report task results

If you wish to obtain the specific outputs from the Identity Enhanced Report task via the Onfido API (for example, the overall report result or breakdown results), you can manage this by configuring the Workflow Output in the Studio Workflow Builder. You can also retrieve all associated output data from an Identity Enhanced report.

You can refer to our Studio product guide for more information on Workflow Output configuration. Once set up, the output can be consumed by making a Retrieve Workflow Run call to the Onfido API. Report results are found in the output property.

Workflow Run results can also be accessed on the "Results" tab of your Studio Dashboard.