Nearly every company engages in digital business transactions. Customers want to connect with you online, and employees want to collaborate remotely. Simultaneously, the internet is an anonymous digital world. You can’t always easily verify the person at the other keyboard.
However, there are solutions that can help ensure that people are who they say they are online. Digital identities are complex collections of unique information that allow you to build trust with an online user. As an employer, they help you verify employees’ and contractors’ identities. As a business, they give you a way to protect customer information and mitigate fraud risk.
With so many internal and external users, digital identity management is essential for businesses so that they can verify everyone and document their activities.
Digital identity management is a set of processes and technologies that allow people to securely share their personal information with companies or other people.
The data you collect to create a digital identity includes personally identifiable information (PII), like:
A digital identity manager allows you to control access to PII. For example, you can set different levels of access based on what role people play within your organization. Your HR department collects sensitive employee data, but the rest of your company shouldn’t be able to see that information. Your marketing team may collect digital identity information to personalize customer experiences, but the HR department doesn’t need to know that information.
Digital identity management protects your organization and your customers. With digital identity management, you create a central location that manages all customer, employee, and contractor identity information.
Digital identity management is important for several reasons, including:
Identity and access management (IAM) is the set of policies and technologies that control users’ access to resources such as databases, networks, applications, and devices. IAM solutions are typically implemented within an organization’s network infrastructure, establishing centralized controls over user identities and permissions. Your IAM solution enables you to manage user accounts, passwords, privileges, roles, groups, entitlements, and policies across multiple systems and platforms.
When businesses implement digital identity management, they gain financial and operational benefits.
From onboarding to completing daily tasks, digital identity management streamlines the employee user experience. Digital identity management allows you to electronically collect employee documentation like contracts and forms. It also ensures that employees have the resource access they need to complete their job functions.
Since a digital identity consists of multiple data points, you can create a more accurate picture of the user to verify them. For example, you can correlate information like username, password, geographic location, and device for a more accurate picture of the person accessing the account.
Digital identity management enables the convenience and enhanced privacy that customers want when interacting with your business online. For example, they can create online accounts that allow them to make payments and complete transactions without having to provide sensitive information over email or phone.
Organizations can save money by reducing paper usage and streamlining processes. Additionally, since internal and external users can have online experiences, you gain improved visibility into processes that enhance efficiency and reduce costs. These include remote work options and allowing customers to make online purchases.
Scaling your business means providing digital transactions to customers and employees. You should implement a digital identity management system to protect your organization and build customer trust. There are four steps that we recommend when implementing a digital identity management system:
Before selecting a solution, you must review your current identity verification processes and documentation. Some considerations include:
No two companies are the same. You need to choose a solution that works for your unique needs. Some questions to ask when making a decision include:
Once you choose a solution, you must plan your strategy. Since a digital identity consists of various data points, you need to determine how you will deploy the tool and implement processes.
Some considerations include:
The longer you use your digital identity management solution, the more data you can collect. For example, if you connect a user ID to a device, you might find that the person uses multiple devices, including a laptop, tablet, and smartphone. The more data you collect, the more accurate the solution becomes. You should monitor the outcomes and iterate processes to enhance return on investment over time.
Building a digital identity means collecting as much information as possible. It’s like creating a digital fingerprint for your users.
Notarize’s online notarization platform enables you to get third-party identity verification to more accurately connect a physical person to their online identity. With Notarize, your customers can use any device they have and get a document notarized at their convenience — from anywhere, anytime. By incorporating Notarize into your digital identity management plans, you can offer enhanced security without making customers do more work. Learn more about how online notarization can help verify identities and signatures for important documents.