Callsign is an artificial intelligence-based authentication platform for enterprises, financial institutions, and consumer-facing digital services. Saeed Ahmad, Managing Director, Middle East and North Africa at Callsign shares their regional strategies with The Integrator.

Tell us about Callsign’s Middle East presence, market share, focused industry verticals, and prospective association with enterprises?

Callsign works with large global banks including many in the middle east region, but we also work with many other industries, because identities are required for all online interactions.

Our focus is to empower organizations and consumers to know who they are interacting with online and provide a solid defense against bad actors and their sophisticated scams and fraud without adding undue friction to the customer journey. Behavioral biometrics are a key technology in this area.

Why there is a need to identify ourselves digitally?

From retail shopping to mobile banking and social media platforms, we need to prove we are who we say we are online. This is amidst a context of diminishing trust between organizations and consumers due to the growth in fraudsters purporting to be from trusted organizations scamming consumers out of money and goods – demonstrating we can’t currently trust the identity of who we interact online. Digital trust is eroding.

How can we build trust using digital identities?

Organizations want consumers to interact and transact with their online services, but it is hard to know who to trust online. Simple pins and passwords do not prove the person is who they say they are. A bad actor using a legitimate username and password looks like a genuine consumer accessing services. So how do we build trust online again? We need to be able to prove beyond doubt who someone is online. To do this, organizations need to challenge the ubiquity of traditional log-in methods, such as usernames and passwords, and instead introduce different ways of validating digital identity to provide the public with confidence in using their services.

One way to do this is to use biometrics, behavioural biometrics add no friction to the user journey and are unique to the user. With a simple swipe of the phone or typing on a keyboard, a user’s identity can be confirmed. It’s extremely hard for a fraudster to mimic the muscle memory of a user, so even if they have genuine credentials, technology will prevent them from gaining access to the services they are trying to game.

Once consumers and organizations have confidence in the technology to do this, we start to build trust. We can trust that the technology we are using online proves who we are beyond doubt, and the digital economy will grow.

How to choose the best authentication method?

There are two different types of authentication methods that organizations can put in place to overcome the shortcomings of relying on usernames and passwords: native biometrics and behavioral biometrics.

However, native biometrics cannot be changed, so if compromised, problems arise. They also add friction, using facial recognition during a payment journey may discourage the consumer from completing the transaction. But using facial recognition to transfer large sums of money may be appropriate friction, it’s a large transaction and so the authentication methods and friction need to be relevant.