TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Authme is a Taipei-based company helping businesses verify their customers' identity using AI, and it has grown into a market-leading player in Taiwan after its initial success working with LINE Bank.
The industry term for verifying a user’s identity is “KYC” (know your customer), which Authme’s COO and co-founder Kuo Chan Tseng (曾國展) said faces three main challenges. “The first thing is actually user friction issues,” Tseng said, speaking to the Startup Island Taiwan Podcast.
Using the example of applying for an online bank account, Tseng said, “You have to input a lot of information from your contact number, personal info on your ID or even upload your ID documents, take a selfie and upload it,” which will then be sent to a real person for review, sometimes causing wait times of multiple days. “So that's why it causes a lot of user friction in this case,” he said.
Tseng said the second big issue is security. “Especially in the last years, generative AI has shown us a lot of things that it is capable of. We have seen deep fakes evolve pretty fast so that it's actually difficult for people to make sure what they see is a real person or a production of an AI, so that causes security issues," he said.
Listen to Tseng's whole conversation with Startup Island Taiwan Podcast here.
For example, Tseng described the issues that some software faces when determining what is a printed photo of a human, and what is the real thing. He said the same issue applies when determining if an online form has been presented with a real photo of an ID card, or simply a copy, and Authme's software development efforts are focused on making sure the authentification process gets it right.
The final issue is compliance, Tseng said. “Regulators are actually taking more awareness on this topic, so they will make the regulations more thorough and more complete,” Tseng said.
“For example, when financial institutions have to do KYC to their customers, they will have to follow certain steps and rules and requirements,” he added.
Authme’s main goal is to simplify the KYC for businesses and users, and Tseng said they do this through a combination of AI-powered facial recognition, and scanning chips and digital signatures inside official identification. However, he said the facial recognition software remains the company’s major focus.
"Likeness detection’ is actually one of the areas that a lot of people are trying to get some new breakthrough (in) because it's a rather new topic, especially with Deepfakes,” Tseng said. “Using AI algorithms to fight against AI fraud attacks is one of the core technologies that we've been developing to help more people protect their own digital identity," he added.
Tseng said Authme grew out of a cryptocurrency exchange created by the company’s other two co-founders, Andy Lee (李紀廣) and Dalton Hsu (許迺赫), who found that protecting digital assets was a major issue and decided to focus on it full time. He said this coincided with a boom in “deep learning” that began around 2017.
At this point, Tseng came on board, and the company secured its first big client, LINE Bank. LINE Bank is a Taiwan-based commercial bank that opened for business in 2021 and has gone on to win multiple awards in the digital financial services field.
Authme spent around three years building its core customer verification product for LINE, and it has since grown into a company with about 30 employees looking to expand overseas, according to Tseng. He said customer verification is a universal need, and the company is currently exploring international markets.
“Digital identity is one of the main focus (areas) that we are aiming for,” Tseng said. “We really want everyone to use their digital identity more carefully, and also with more control in (their) own hands, without being limited by the service providers,” he said.