Wait, who did I just hire?
The importance of proving the identity of your new hires in a world of false and stolen identities.
Proving a job candidate is who they say they are with Know Your Employee (KYE).
The flaw in the current model of employee verification is the complete reliance on what is provided by the person being identified. Traditional identity verification assumes that when a person provides an ID, that ID is real and correct to that person. IDs such as a driver’s license, social security card, or birth certificate can easily be verified, but this does not prove the person who presents the document is the person on the document.
This is where KYE emerges as an important expansion of employee verification. KYE stands for Know Your Employee and goes beyond traditional ID verification by proving the identity of the person, not just verifying the provided ID. The primary goal of KYE is protection. By knowing a person is who they say they are before being hired, an organization can better protect itself, its employees, customers, and its reputation.
This is especially relevant in an age of remote and work-from-home positions where an organization may never meet the employee in person. Organizations are committing more resources to fraud prevention, and improved employee background checks with identity proofing verifications should be part of this enhanced process.
FBI warning – employee identity fraud
A recent hiring con goes like this: a group of people is gathered and trained to represent themselves as software programmers, despite having limited or no knowledge of the skillset. The training focuses on how to respond to basic questions related to the programming position. These ‘applicants’ are set up with false identities, either stolen or created, and then used in applying for open positions. Once hired, either no work is done, or at best, partial, incomplete, or late work is submitted. After a few weeks, the employer realizes the con and fires the newly hired workers. The scheme’s goal is simple: to collect one or a few paychecks on a group of highly paid employees before being discovered.
More than just the wage cost
The cost to companies is more than just stolen wages and the time and effort of onboarding. Before discovery, these ‘employees’ may gain access to a wealth of information. This can include a company’s financial data, corporate IT databases, customers’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII), trade secrets, and other proprietary information.
In 2021 and 2022, the FBI issued multiple private industry notifications on the increased use of various methods of identity fraud to obtain remote and work-at-home positions. One of these notifications warned, “the emerging attack vector will likely have very significant financial and reputational impacts to victim businesses and organizations.”
Current but dated employee verification practices
The extent an employer must do in verifying a new employee is in the examination of the provided identification documents and then determining if the documents reasonably appear to be genuine. Companies have the option within legal parameters to go further and request additional methods of verification based on the position requirements and security access. These methods may include:
- Background checks
- Employment history checks
- Education verification
- Credit checks
KYE by Q5id, a Solution
Learn more about Q5id Proven Identity, our KYE product that quickly and easily proves a person is who they say they are, by clicking here.
