The Philippines should turn to chip-enabled identity cards to effectively fight identity fraud amid the advent of generic artificial intelligence (AI), which has allowed criminals to carry out attacks at unprecedented levels, according to UK-based biometrics specialist iProov.
“If you're introducing a new type of identity card, make sure it has a chip-enabled card that can be verified electronically. This, combined with e-verify.gov.ph, gives you a really high level of assurance that it's the right person,” Milko Radotic, vice president of Asia Pacific at iProov, said in an interview.
Mr. Radotic said document-related fraud is one of the most prevalent forms of identity fraud in the country, partly due to the lack of chips embedded in normal IDs — unlike the secure electronic chips typically found in passports.
Synthetic identity fraud in the United States alone is projected to result in a loss of at least US$23 billion in 2023, iProove said, citing a Delight Insights report.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), for example, currently accepts about 30 different valid identification documents to open a bank account, but very few of them have secure electronic chips.
“If you want to open a bank account away from your couch, you can do that,” Mr. Radotic said. “You can use any one of these 31 documents. Some of them are more secure than others. So, the level of trust you can have in the document is a challenge.”
According to the Secure Technology Alliance, smart ID cards with embedded chips or RFID technology strengthen identity security by securely storing and protecting personal data, supporting trusted authentication, and helping to prevent alteration, cloning or unauthorized access to identity records.
It added that chip-based IDs also enable stronger verification processes, allowing institutions to electronically verify identity and detect fraudulent or altered credentials more efficiently.
Various agencies have recently begun adopting more secure digital identity systems in the Philippines, such as the Digital National ID and its authentication platforms National ID eVerify and National ID Check launched in June 2024.
A pilot rollout of the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) ID system integrated with RFID technology was also done last year to curb fake cards and improve verification.
Mr. Radotic lauded the government's initiative to combat identity fraud, noting that with more than 92 million Filipinos already enrolled in the Philippine Identification System (PhilSIS), platforms such as e-verify.gov.ph and eGov.ph now allow organizations to directly verify the “source” of a document against a trusted official database. — Age Adrian A Eva