The New York-based technology vendor announced the launch of its public-sector business last week, with digital identity and biometric industry veteran Matt Thompson as general manager of public-sector solutions for Socure.
His job will include helping government clients verify that people applying for public agency benefits and services are whom they claim to be.
The hire of Thompson and expansion of Socure into this sector reflects broader trends among tech developers, whether in mobile devices, biometrics, or digital commerce and financial services, implementing new ways to sort genuine customers and applicants from aspiring fraudsters. In a news release, Socure pointed to the explosion of fraudulent unemployment claims during the pandemic as an example of that need.
“Many agencies lack the industry experience required to effectively manage identity verification and reduce fraud losses in the midst of accelerated digital transformation due to the pandemic. Furthermore, the gaps within legacy identity solutions were exposed, leaving numerous eligible people waiting extended periods of time for their benefits while enabling fraudsters to manipulate these same benefits at an unprecedented level,” Thompson said in a public statement. “We are committed to solving this challenge for government agencies.”
Socure says its product includes unsupervised machine-learning clustering capabilities, which increase how much data goes into its identity analysis. According to the news release, Socure's identity resolution engine analyzes more than 8 billion records, including credit histories, utility information, educational records and others. The company already offers its ID verification tools to online retailers, banks, gaming operations, health care and other businesses, counting more than 750 customers across various industries.
Thompson, whose hire was announced in October, came from the security technology company IDEMIA – whose clients include police departments – where he led the company’s civil and digital ID business in North America and helped oversee work on digital driver’s licenses. According to Socure, Thompson holds three patents for mobile biometric liveness detection, or detecting if the user of a system is a spoof or a real person. He also co-founded the identity tech firm ID.me.