If you’re blessed with youthful good looks, and you’ve recently attempted to purchase a bottle of wine from a grocery store, the chances are that you’ve been asked for ID. The store employee asks you for ID. You show them a passport or your driver’s license. You are soon complimented on your stunning complexion and given your bottle.
When you complete other tasks that require ID, you need something more secure than just whipping out your passport photo. With the emergence of online fraud, hacking and customer data breaches, the issue of cybersecurity is more important than ever. If you run a small business, take a look at how you can ensure that your data is safe at all times.
Old School
More websites than ever are allowing customers to sign in to a special section of the website. Many photographers will encourage their clientele to sign in securely to view proofs of their wedding pictures, and businesses selling products will promote customer sign in to track an order. As such, you don’t want any hacker or imposter signing in and stealing valuable customer data.
Do you have a physical building that can be visited by your customers? Ask them to visit and provide an ID in person. With a photocopy of a passport scanned into your system for safe keeping, you can put a face to a name and hand out a secure password.
ID Verification
If a password is not enough for your business, you don’t have a physical premises, and you want to provide an extra level of security, you may need to investigate trusted ID verification solutions. Facial recognition software can check a scanned passport or driving licence in real time. This means that there is no lag to your customer. You might even want to ask for this ID every time that they sign in to be sure that only the right people are seeing the right data. Digital verification is still in the embryonic stages, but nevertheless, it is one of the most secure methods of ID verification that there is as human error cannot occur, and biometric technology is utilized.
Multiple Levels
Although you don’t want to make the whole process of ID verification too taxing and laborious, your customers will prefer overkill to none at all. Ask them to provide a password. Then prompt them to change it every ten times they log on or once every two months. Send an email with some basic security advice to your customer mailing list. Your customers will appreciate the thoughtfulness you show towards their data.
Protect your customers’ data. They deserve it! As such you should also keep your end of the bargain. Maintain your firewalls. Deliver training to your staff. Never open dodgy looking email attachments. Always backup your systems. This way any lost data can be restored. Data breaches are relatively rare, but it is still important that you take cybersecurity seriously and maintain ID verification procedures.
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