Verifying an Identity

A part of the puzzle of solving and preventing fraud has to do with verifying an identity. I struggle with this problem for a number of reasons. First, it straddles multiple problems. It exists as a challenge in itself and is hard to define. If we start by saying does a collection of data uniquely identify a particular individual, we are still left with the issue of how to know this to be true? And if I can do it now with a subset of data, would I get the same answer later? If I can use the data to choose from among a set of ‘identities’, surely the problem is harder as that set of possibilities grows? But if part of the problem is having the possibility of the ‘right’ individual even existing within the dataset, then more identities makes my life easier. And on fraud, it often feels like some people say they want Identity Verification as though that is synonmous with ‘fraud’. It feels like a conflation of a feature with resolution of the problem. There’s a level of trust that inability to verify has a direct line with fraud.