Stripe launches Stripe Identity, an identity verification tool for online businesses | ZDNet

Stripe on Monday announced the launch of Stripe Identity, an identity verification system for online businesses. The self-service tool is designed to let businesses deploy a verification flow fully hosted by Stripe as a means of reducing fraud, preventing account takeovers and stopping bad actors.

“Businesses have been asking us for an easy and fast way to verify identities online. Stripe Identity offers them just that,” said Rob Daly, head of engineering for Stripe Identity. “Now, any internet business — from a five-person startup to a multinational enterprise — can begin securely verifying the identities of their users in a matter of minutes, not weeks or months.”

Stripe Identity can be integrated via either a low-code or a no-code option. The low-code integration is hosted by Stripe lets businesses get up and running with verification in minutes, Stripe said. The no-code option lets fraud and risk teams generate verification links to assess suspicious transactions or high-risk users. 

As part of the identity verification process, users take a photo of their government ID and a live selfie, which Stripe’s machine learning then matches to the ID. Businesses can also request that users provide additional information that can be checked against third-party records.

The information collected is encrypted and sent directly to Stripe, which means no sensitive, personal information is ever stored on a business’s own servers. The entire verification process for an individual user can be completed  15 seconds, Stripe said.

The launch of Stripe Identity comes a week after the company rolled out Stripe Tax, a new compliance tool that lets businesses automate the calculation and collection of sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), and goods and services tax (GST). It also creates comprehensive reports that make it easier for businesses to file taxes.