EE, the UK’s largest mobile operator and part of BT Group, has announced its new Digital Identity platform, which helps protect customers from becoming victims of fraud.
Through a series of checks, the platform quickly and seamlessly verifies a customer’s identity in real time, helping to prevent identity theft and fraudulent activities.
A common type of criminal activity that EE tackles with the Digital Identity platform is SIM swap fraud; an account takeover where a customer’s phone number is transferred without the account holder’s knowledge. A fraudster can then intercept messages or calls to the phone number and gain unauthorised access to online accounts.
EE’s Digital Identity ‘SIM Swap’ checker allows businesses to know when a customer’s SIM was last changed, as a recent change could indicate potential fraud. With banking partners, this information is then used to stop financial transactions taking place until further identity checks are carried out. Similarly, the Digital Identity ‘Call Divert’ feature confirms that no call diversions have been put in place on a phone number, so all calls reach the intended user and are not diverted to a fraudulent number.
Christian Thrane, MD of Consumer Marketing, BT
At BT and EE, we are committed to innovating to help protect customers from fraud and are already working closely with a number of industries, including banking, eCommerce and gaming, to protect millions of transactions every day.
