Adopt, adapt and move forward

What does the future hold for biometric identity verification platforms? Julen Remesar, sales director at Alice Biometrics, participated in the State of Identity podcast with Cameron D’Ambrosi. They discussed the future of a field that continues to evolve in the face of changing regulations, platform demands and new technologies.

Julen Remesar – Sales Director at Alice Biometrics

Let’s get started!

Cameron D’Ambrosi – Welcome to State of Identity. I’m Cameron Ambrosi. This week I’m joined by Julen Remesar, Director of Sales at Alice Biometrics. Julen, welcome to State of Identity.

Julen Remesar – Thank you very much for counting on me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been listening to a lot of your episodes and I’m delighted to share my views and ideas about the market today. Love the work you’re doing and really looking forward to talking about how I see the future of digital identity.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – Fantastic. Well, you know, as I like to say, flattery will get you everywhere. So thank you for those kind words, I really appreciate them. But, you know, as a host, I really feel like the strength of the podcast is inherently in the guests and people like you who make time to talk to us and share your knowledge with our audience. So thank you on behalf of all of our listeners. And let’s dive into it. You know, it’s a relatively overcrowded space the field of biometrics. I think there’s a lot of platforms out there, which general a lot of confusion around what’s being done by who, who has their own technology? And I think it’s a challenge for buyers to really understand it….. what am I buying and what do I really need? In terms of Alice’s biometrics, why are they different and how have they differentiated their value proposition from other competitors in the biometrics industry, in your opinion?Cameron D’Ambrosi – Fantastic. Well, you know, as I like to say, flattery will get you everywhere. So thank you for those kind words, I really appreciate them. But, you know, as a host, I really feel like the strength of the podcast is inherently in the guests and people like you who make time to talk to us and share your knowledge with our audience. So thank you on behalf of all of our listeners. And let’s dive into it. You know, it’s a relatively overcrowded space the field of biometrics. I think there’s a lot of platforms out there, which general a lot of confusion around what’s being done by who, who has their own technology? And I think it’s a challenge for buyers to really understand it….. what am I buying and what do I really need? In terms of Alice’s biometrics, why are they different and how have they differentiated their value proposition from other competitors in the biometrics industry, in your opinion?

Julen Remesar – I think we’re facing a very innovative vertical, and I think there’s a lot of confusion, as you mentioned, of who does what and what’s the added value for the customer. And there’s a lot of…I would say…nonsense on that side. Alice comes from a background of a research and development within a technology center that was meant to develop technology for cybersecurity in one of the branches, or one of the main departments of that research center, was biometric cybersecurity and spoofing detection. So we created the technology in the 2010s and on top of that, we built a solution in order to be able to offer the service to third parties. So our core is really to develop this technology. After some time in the market, we realized that customers were not able to translate all the developments that we were doing for the market. And we weren’t able to see all the feedback that we or these customers were getting from end users. So in 2017 we decided to look at the option of setting up a separate company that would focus on disseminating this technology and creating an approach that our customers could integrate and use all the capability that we had today. It took us a little longer than expected. So we founded the company a couple of years later, in 2019, when we created this software as a service (SaaS) that we have today. Well, I think Alice is quite differential because of the way we approach identity verification. The vast majority of companies in the industry come from having evolved from manual verification systems, through videoconferencing, asynchronous capture, etc. and then developed technology that was automating part of this process. We were born directly from automation technology, and from there, we created a service focused 100% on automated responses, with no waiting times, making the onboarding process both easy and secure. Without going to the detriment of conversion rates, which is what usually happens when you add an identity verification system to your onboarding.Julen Remesar – I think we’re facing a very innovative vertical, and I think there’s a lot of confusion, as you mentioned, of who does what and what’s the added value for the customer. And there’s a lot of…I would say…nonsense on that side. Alice comes from a background of a research and development within a technology center that was meant to develop technology for cybersecurity in one of the branches, or one of the main departments of that research center, was biometric cybersecurity and spoofing detection. So we created the technology in the 2010s and on top of that, we built a solution in order to be able to offer the service to third parties. So our core is really to develop this technology. After some time in the market, we realized that customers were not able to translate all the developments that we were doing for the market. And we weren’t able to see all the feedback that we or these customers were getting from end users. So in 2017 we decided to look at the option of setting up a separate company that would focus on disseminating this technology and creating an approach that our customers could integrate and use all the capability that we had today. It took us a little longer than expected. So we founded the company a couple of years later, in 2019, when we created this software as a service (SaaS) that we have today. Well, I think Alice is quite differential because of the way we approach identity verification. The vast majority of companies in the industry come from having evolved from manual verification systems, through videoconferencing, asynchronous capture, etc. and then developed technology that was automating part of this process. We were born directly from automation technology, and from there, we created a service focused 100% on automated responses, with no waiting times, making the onboarding process both easy and secure. Without going to the detriment of conversion rates, which is what usually happens when you add an identity verification system to your onboarding.

So, based on those principles, we believe that there are not many companies that really have that background. So we try to tell our customers that we are not a sales team without a good technology, but the other way around, that we really are a technology solution and we take care of our customers’ needs.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – Fantastic. And in terms of modalities, you know, a lot of different biometric data circulating, whether it’s on the user, a behavioral analytics entity whether it’s fingerprint, face…you know, what modality do you think is the best these days and where do you perceive users feel most comfortable. They feel like they’re offered that right balance between the friction of the user, and the trust of sharing their biometric data.Cameron D’Ambrosi: Fantastic. And in terms of modalities, you know, a lot of different biometric data circulating, whether it’s on the user, a behavioral analytics entity whether it’s fingerprint, face…you know, what modality do you think is the best these days and where do you perceive users feel most comfortable. They feel like they’re offered that right balance between the friction of the user, and the trust of sharing their biometric data.

Julen Remesar – Well, the key is to address every problem that our customers have with the right technology. So I really think voice biometrics is a very good solution as long as you serve the customer over the phone line. If you have a lot of customers calling directly, they need some support. For example, if they have a car problem in the middle of nowhere and you have to identify them. Fingerprint is also very convenient when you need an on-premises access control system, it’s a matter of milliseconds, and you don’t need to deploy it on a specific system in the cloud or a very complicated identification system. But when we talk about identity verification, facial biometrics is the most important thing. Because the face is something that you always carry with you and you don’t rely on any device to capture it, it’s registered in an official record in all the public databases and in an ID document that is able to register that face not only in an image, but also in an ID document. So if we’re talking about true identity verification, it’s clear to me that the face is the key.

On the other hand, we see that large companies are demanding more biometrics to capture all the added value. So, of course, it is a strength to have more than one biometric, and integrate them into the user experience of your product. In short, for me it is key to have at least facial biometrics, and build the additional infrastructure around it.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – I think infrastructure is of great interest to the industry, and with the changing regulatory landscape and data privacy and localization laws, do you have a preference between on premise versus cloud or on device matching? What are your thoughts on that? What do your customers want? And where do you think the future of the industry is headed? Do you think it’s all about the cloud? Do you think it’s a hybrid approach depending on the application?

Julen Remesar – Yes, I would say that it is a critical moment to analyze that future. I see many trends and there are many people defending each one of them. In the next few years we will see what happens. Of course, when we started the company, we came from an on premise distribution where we built some Dockers that we did with our customers. And then in order to give the best performance, the best continuous improvement, in order to have a better understanding of what’s going on with the end user, in order to better understand how our customers were integrating their system, we switched to a SaaS-based, cloud-based platform. So we’re able to feel in real time what our customers are doing and what’s going on with them. So for me, the future of identity verification, at least for Alice, would be a cloud-based system.

Another thing is if we talk about how the identity will be managed after onboarding. This is where the interesting topic of identity wallets comes in. Both public and private organizations. And I think we will move towards decentralized identity governance. The key for me is who is going to govern those types of identities? Is it going to be the public sector? Is it going to be the private sector? Is the private sector willing to share that information with its competitors? In Spain, for example, there have been some attempts of this type. And they were not successful because companies did not want to share the cost of acquisition, or they did not want to share the information with other competitors in exchange for security features and anti-fraud measures. They preferred to have their own identity verification. They chose Alice to build their own identity verification authentication platform with our technology.

But on the other hand, we have a lot of customers who do wonder what would happen if I share this identity, what would happen if I, for example, being a mobility operator, put together all the information that each of us has about each user, about their behavior, about how they pay, how they park? These customers think of the future of identity as something common and shared.

The vast majority of companies in the sector have evolved from manual verification systems, through videoconferencing, asynchronous capture, etc. and then developed technology that automated part of this process. We were born directly from the automation technology, and from there, we created a service focused 100% on automated responses, with no waiting times, making the onboarding process both easy and secure. Without detriment to conversion rates.

Julen Remesar – Sales Director at Alice Biometrics

From a technical point of view, it is also a challenge to define whether this is going to revolve around a digital certificate, or around blockchain. There is a lot of noise in the market. There is a lot of public investment in this with the EU regulation around 2 billion. As you can see, there are a lot of questions on the table, and I’m not arrogant enough to tell you what’s going to happen, but I think the most likely thing is private wallets. The question is, will we have multiple identity portfolios or will we be able to have just one? I guess we’ll have one for financial institutions, one for fintechs, one for utilities. That’s what I see in the short term.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – And I think that’s an important point about eIDAS and writing these forecasts around what this future of identity is going to mean as consumers. For me, the question is what role are biometrics companies like Alice going to play? With the assumption that volumes are going to go down and that, you know, biometric capabilities are not necessary for any platform if these credentials end up in the hands of users. I believe in account recovery and making sure that somebody has a trusted, verifiable credential in hand. But for an individual platform, what level of trust can I assign to that credential? I think biometrics is going to continue to play a role here, as well as liveness detection. How do you see this – would you consider liveness detection capability as one of the strengths of the Alice platform?

Julen Remesar: Yes, indeed. I mean, in general, I would say that companies are going into more detail about what’s going on in the digital world. And I would say they’re going to start with ‘never trust, always verify’ policies Passwords are a complete nightmare. And most companies will aim to stop using them. And, of course, identity verification will play a big role in this and not just as a tool to verify user discharge, but throughout the entire user lifecycle, as identity verification tools. So yes, companies like Alice, we will have an important role in those wallets, not only in the creation of the wallet but in its use as an authentication tool for continuous use. Because in the end, companies will want to verify the user on multiple occasions, not just at registration.

Our approach to proof-of-life screening is somewhat different than usual. We have always believed that proof-of-life testing is something that is necessary, and not just at the time of discharge, but it doesn’t have to be a sticking point. And so the way we’ve developed our algorithm is by focusing on passive proof-of-life detection, so that anyone can perform that check in any circumstance. Being on the street, being at home, being in the subway…. Also from an accessibility point of view it is much better, for people in the elderly or with disabilities. The way of using passive life testing detection makes a big difference.Our approach to proof-of-life screening is somewhat different than usual. We have always believed that proof-of-life testing is something that is necessary, and not just at the time of discharge, but it doesn’t have to be a sticking point. And so the way we’ve developed our algorithm is by focusing on passive proof-of-life detection, so that anyone can perform that check in any circumstance. Being on the street, being at home, being in the subway…. Also from an accessibility point of view it is much better, for people in the elderly or with disabilities. The way of using passive life testing detection makes a big difference.

Cameron D’Ambrosi: I love that. And I think proof of life is so critical in these applications in the sense that I think the threats to the ecosystem with verifiable credentials are going to be centered around different vectors, you know, injection style attacks to maybe try to claim someone’s verifiable credential before they can maybe block it. And proof of life I think, more than any other technology, is going to play a critical role in ensuring consumer trust and ecosystem trust around this next set of credentials. In that same sense, in thinking about the applications and the market segments where you’re seeing maybe a new kind of demand, obviously, you know, I think biometrics, in large part, has been deployed previously for the higher level assurance use cases, you know, the regulated use cases, things like financial services, sending money…. But I think we continue to see digital identity making inroads into other areas where there was little penetration before. Is that something that you’re seeing on your side as well in terms of new verticals and new types of customers coming to you?

Julen Remesar – Yes, I mean, the use cases are limitless. I would say identity verification, proof of life, facial recognition… they’re going to verticals that have never been considered before. We work with social media companies. We work with insurance issuers. We work with mobility operators, rental cars, hotels…. And most of them get to identify their customer better, and with less friction in the process. If you offer a service to an end customer, every time you need to identify and know more about that customer, you will need a platform like ours. For example, if you sell alcohol online, tobacco, adult content…. I mean, all those industries will have some kind of identity verification. It could be a full one or a partial one, like ID verification. But that’s coming for sure. And we’re seeing it in the physical world as well, with companies demanding proof of life at the physical point of sale or at access control. For example in a 24-hour gym, where a person wants to enter at night, and you want to avoid impersonation, while at the same time you want the process to be quick and easy. And we have more and more use cases in the face-to-face world, like in hotels, for verification of commercial forces, etc. So again, not only in the digital world, but also in the physical world, the use cases are unlimited. Every day we have a new case that we want to study.Yes, I mean, the use cases are limitless. I would say identity verification, proof of life, facial recognition… they’re going to verticals that have never been considered before. We work with social media companies. We work with insurance issuers. We work with mobility operators, rental cars, hotels…. And most of them get to identify their customer better, and with less friction in the process. If you offer a service to an end customer, every time you need to identify and know more about that customer, you will need a platform like ours. For example, if you sell alcohol online, tobacco, adult content…. I mean, all those industries will have some kind of identity verification. It could be a full one or a partial one, like ID verification. But that’s coming for sure. And we’re seeing it in the physical world as well, with companies demanding proof of life at the physical point of sale or at access control. For example in a 24-hour gym, where a person wants to enter at night, and you want to avoid impersonation, while at the same time you want the process to be quick and easy. And we have more and more use cases in the face-to-face world, like in hotels, for verification of commercial forces, etc. So again, not only in the digital world, but also in the physical world, the use cases are unlimited. Every day we have a new case that we want to study.

Our approach to proof-of-life screening is somewhat different than usual. We have always believed that proof-of-life testing is something that is necessary, and not just at the time of discharge, but it doesn’t have to be a sticking point. And so the way we’ve developed our algorithm is by focusing on passive proof-of-life detection, so that anyone can perform that check in any circumstance. Being on the street, being at home, being on the subway….Our approach to proof-of-life screening is somewhat different than usual. We have always believed that proof-of-life testing is something that is necessary, and not just at the time of discharge, but it doesn’t have to be a sticking point. And so the way we’ve developed our algorithm is by focusing on passive proof-of-life detection, so that anyone can perform that check in any circumstance. Being on the street, being at home, being on the subway….

Julen Remesar – Sales Director at Alice Biometrics

Cameron D’Ambrosi: Fantastic. And for people who are listening and want to get in touch to understand, you know, how they could integrate biometrics into their systems and how to add proof-of-life capabilities or other enhancements to their platform without increasing friction. Where’s the best place for them to go to learn more about Alice and how they can get in touch with you?

Julen Remesar – Through alicebiometrics.com. Where we publish what we do, how we do it, what use cases and success stories we have, so you can understand more about how it works. Well, we have a direct phone number (+34 608 251 981) to contact us and a contact mailbox where you can send any questions you may have. And we will be happy to assist you.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – Fantastic. Before we wrap up here, I always like to have people make some crystal ball predictions, dust off their wizard hat and make some forecasts, you know, what do you think is the biggest trend that maybe we haven’t discussed that’s coming down the road in the biometrics industry in general? Any indicators that you want to make clear to our audience about what we can expect to see in the next couple of years?

Julen Remesar – Well, for me, I would be that I am there will be many attempts to create these digital portfolios. I would say that large companies will try to bring these all these value uses together, not only in the private sector, but also in the public sector. As we’ve seen with eIDAS, but we’ve also been working with some local institutions in order to build some kind of more local identity. And I would say that those wallets we will aggregate all those biometric data, voice, face, fingerprint, etc. It’s something that we’ll really look at in the short term.

Cameron D’Ambrosi – I love it. Look, I think we’re poised to really have one of the most transformative. Several years in the space in the next 1 to 2 years, again, with, you know, continuing legislative efforts, continuing regulatory pushes. Whether it’s in the U.S. with the adoption of mobile driver’s licenses, whether it’s in Europe with public digital identity initiatives or in Africa or Latin America. There’s a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of uptake of these technologies and I think fundamental changes in the way they’re deployed. So I certainly look forward to having you back to discuss these trends sometime soon. Thank you very much for your time. I hope we’ll talk again soon.

Julen Remesar – Thank you very much for having me. And looking forward to coming back again.

You can listen to the original interview at Liminal.com Podcast