What is the Difference Between Verification and Authentication of an Identity?

To obtain a bank card, make online payments or register a new account on any online platform, you may need verification or authentication.

Although these two concepts have a lot in common, there is a very significant difference between them. Authentication is necessary to keep your personal money or information from being illegally taken over. Thanks to the development of the Internet, sensitive information is becoming more vulnerable, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to protect it from unauthorized access.

Verification is the process of establishing identity. As a rule, it is carried out in relation to the user of any resource to allow or deny him access to specific information. In this article, we will look at the main similarities and differences between authentication and verification.


Identity verification begins with identification

Identity verification begins with identification

Identification is a series of measures aimed at determining the identity of a particular person. It can be carried out when, for example, a user wants to buy something from an online store. To do this, he or she will need to provide a bank card number and other data unambiguously indicating his or her identity.

Being an effective tool, identification does not guarantee security and confidentiality. Thus, the one who has received the bank account owner's identifiers at his disposal can use the information transferred to him for fraudulent purposes.

If an organization relies solely on identification for its work, it means that it is willing to trust the identity information obtained through this process without further verification.


What is the point of verification?

The point of this procedure is not simply to determine identity. Through verification, we can determine whether the information provided by the individual as part of the verification is true. This procedure establishes the basic data about the subject and also checks other information provided by him/her against the truth.

During identification, the identity of the person being verified is established according to the information they have submitted. More often than not, the data for reconciliation is requested from a reliable database that generates the result. Typically, the information for verification includes:

  • personal phone number;
  • last name, first name, middle name and day, month and year of birth;
  • details of identity documents;
  • biometric parameters.

The verification process establishes the validity of the available data, as well as the availability and authenticity of the specified documents. If everything is in order, it is considered that the verification is successfully passed by the applicant.

If you are interested in implementing modern verification methods, you should pay attention to image people search. This method allows you to determine the identity of a person by their face. It is increasingly being used for biometric data verification to significantly speed up the entire process, while ensuring that financial transactions and other critical information are better protected from fraudulent abuse.


Authentication procedure

Authentication procedure

It can be used to determine whether the person trying to access a previously created account is its rightful owner. This verification allows you to make a particular profile available only to the person who registered it. Authentication is of particular importance because it ensures the privacy and security of the owner's information.

There are three main types of authenticators:

  • a control question and its answer;
  • a password that has been thought up in advance and entered by the user;
  • cryptographic code or any other unique identifier belonging to the user;
  • face, fingerprints or other biometric indicators of the profile owner.

The third method is the most accurate and therefore the most suitable for authentication. The program compares the previously entered biometric data with the current one. If they match, it means that the previously registered user is requesting to log in to the profile. If not, then the system detects an unauthorized access attempt and prevents it.


Conclusions

Authentication and verification perform the same task. The second one allows verifying the authenticity of data, which may refer only to one specific person. At the same time, authentication establishes access rights to a resource or information on the basis of secret information previously provided by the user – access code, password, secret key, etc.

Verification is an accurate verification of identity based on biometric attributes. Authentication implies constant reconciliation of information. With its help, the user gets access to a personal account only after entering the previously prescribed hidden data.

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