How pawaPass Is Revolutionizing ID Verification In Africa

Despite a burgeoning digital landscape, Africa predominantly relies on traditional ID-based verification systems. These systems often pose obstacles for online businesses due to issues like forgery, poor ID quality, lack of standardization, and vulnerabilities to fraud.

pawaPass, a regtech startup catering to African startups, addresses these challenges by prioritizing facial biometrics as the core of identity verification. This approach, supported by rigorous testing and advanced technology, is resilient against deepfakes and other fraudulent methods. pawaPass simplifies identification processes, aiding in fraud prevention and laying the foundation for a secure, inclusive digital economy across Africa. The platform is beneficial for both small entrepreneurs and large organizations, offering scalability and adaptability to meet the varied demands of the continent’s burgeoning online market.

CIO Africa interviewed Sylvia Brune, CEO, pawaPass, on how the startup navigates the delicate balance of user privacy and anti-fraud measures, its scalability, and future to integrate its ID verification technology into various industries.

A: We are trying to help businesses trust the people they interact with online or remotely, using facial biometrics. Two core tenets to trusting anyone online is knowing they are a real human and that they are unique, within your system. If you can know for sure that a person is a real human, and that this person has only a single account with you, you can trust your dealings with this person. If this person abuses your services or commits fraud, you can block them and ensure they aren’t able to create new accounts, using their face.  With more and more people in Africa using online services, and more business relationships being conducted remotely, anti-fraud measures like facial biometrics can mean the difference between efficient operations and sustainable growth or financial losses and reputational damage.

Q: What are the most significant challenges that African businesses face in user verification, and how does pawaPass’s approach differ from traditional methods?

A: In many countries, requiring IDs during verification or re-authentication processes is challenging for a few reasons, 1. Many people don’t have valid IDs, 2. The poor quality of some IDs mean false negatives, and 3. Fraudsters can get ahold of different IDs and create multiple accounts. So basing the authenticity of a user on IDs can block real users while non-unique identities can abuse the system. In pawaPass, the foundational element of an identity is the facial biometric. From there you can add supplementary data points. We did extensive testing and research on the underlying biometric technology and selected one that was unspoofable – by deepfakes, masks, or other fraudulent attempts, and that could reliably detect & flag duplicates.

Q: pawaPass uses innovative technology to mitigate fraud and user duplication. Could you elaborate on how this technology works and ensures ethical practices in tackling these issues?

A: Each new scan completes a liveness check and creates a 3D Facemap. The footage is deleted instantly thereafter to ensure it can never be shared or reused. During the scan, a business’ entire database of 3d face maps is scanned to find a similar Facemap. If it finds one, it flags it as a possible duplicate. This way of verifying users allows businesses to protect themselves from abuse and attacks while also protecting users from their data being used by nefarious actors, even if the data is stolen, it can’t be used to impersonate users or take over their accounts.

Q: In implementing anti-fraud and anti-money laundering measures, how does pawaPass navigate the ethical considerations and privacy concerns associated with user data?

A: As previously noted, each new scan completes a liveness check and creates a 3D Facemap. The footage is deleted instantly thereafter to ensure it can never be shared or reused.

Q: Looking at the broader picture, how scalable is the pawaPass solution, and what are your plans for expanding its reach within and beyond Sub-Saharan Africa?

A: We are focused on solutions for contexts specific to African businesses. For example, it’s important to us that this technology can work well using a browser, and on low-end smartphones. If you want to reach the mass market in Africa, you also have to think about security and verification within the context of data costs, and internet coverage. Like giving businesses the ability to conduct light background checks on user activity, and only disrupt sessions if there is reason to believe there is fraudulent activity underway. Or by giving end-users the ability to protect themselves, by requesting that certain transaction sizes or certain sensitive actions like changing a password or phone number requires a biometric face scan to verify the correct account holder.

Q: Can you discuss some common pitfalls that online businesses in Africa face and how pawaPass assists in overcoming these challenges?

A: Many businesses engage in highly manual processes to validate users, including the collection and storage of sensitive personal information. Sometimes they aren’t able to create more robust processes or automate checks as part of their user flows due to inadequate resources or knowledge. For these cases we have built bespoke solutions for businesses that allows for a more secure storage of data, and a more streamlined and automated process.

Q: pawaPass is playing a crucial role in fostering a more inclusive economy. In your view, what are the broader implications of this inclusivity for economic growth in the continent?

A: All companies that contribute to help build trust and reliable data points for online activities will be a key part of ensuring that online services and opportunities are open to anyone. Without trust online, economic activity will be confined to cash transactions and in person opportunities. So I’d say the potential is life-changing for many people who don’t have access to services and economic opportunities where they live.

Q: What are the future plans for pawaPass?

A: To tie in the user verification and anti-fraud elements with compliance elements that are more industry specific. Like finance, immigration, employment, etc.

Q: What advice would you offer to entrepreneurs in Africa looking to address similar challenges in the digital economy?

A: User verification and anti-fraud controls need to be extremely cheap per unit to be useful for most businesses in Africa. That means to be economically viable you have to either partner with or sell to very large enterprises – which can take time and requires a good network. It will probably also be quite difficult to sustainably build a business on a pure online offering to small business customers, and in any case it would take a very long time to become profitable. So it’s a good idea to keep costs low and understand that this is a marathon. The alternative is building bespoke solutions for high value business where the unit cost or overall price can be higher, and may involve more manual work as well.