By Legal Futures Associate Valid8 IP
Fraud, identity verification and customer onboarding have traditionally been viewed as operational matters. Increasingly, however, we’re seeing them become topics of discussion at a more strategic level.
A major factor is the changing nature of fraud itself.
According to Cifas’s Fraudscape 2026 report, more than 444,000 fraud cases were recorded in the National Fraud Database during 2025, the highest annual total on record and a 6% increase on the previous year. Identity fraud and facility (account) takeover accounted for 72% of all cases recorded, with Cifas highlighting the growing role of AI and generative technologies in enabling convincing impersonations, fake documents and synthetic identities at speed and scale.
Against that backdrop, many organisations appear to be looking beyond basic identity verification and focusing more closely on identity assurance.
Increasingly, the conversation appears to be moving from “have we checked this person’s identity?” to “how confident are we in the evidence behind that identity?”
The UK’s digital identity market has also evolved rapidly in recent years. At the heart of many discussions about trust and verification sits GPG45, the government’s guidance and methodology for establishing confidence in an individual’s identity. The aim is to establish confidence through multiple layers of evidence rather than relying on a single document or data point.
Why does this matter to senior leaders?
Because identity assurance increasingly sits at the intersection of trust, fraud prevention, customer experience and operational efficiency.
From our perspective, we’re seeing growing interest in biometric verification, stronger evidence standards and more robust onboarding journeys across legal, claims management, insolvency, debt, mortgage and other sectors.
We’re also closely monitoring developments in identity assurance standards, including GPG45, as digital identity frameworks continue to mature and adoption continues to grow across parts of the UK market.
Ultimately, identity assurance is becoming a boardroom discussion because it is no longer simply a technology issue. It is also a trust, customer experience and business-risk discussion.
If you’d like to discuss how identity verification, biometric technology and digital onboarding are evolving, or explore how Valid8 could support your onboarding and identity assurance processes, we’d be delighted to hear from you.
