IDEMIA and Proof Forge Alliance for New Era of Digital Identity

RESTON, Va. and BOSTON – March 03, 2026 – In a significant move to reshape the digital trust landscape, identity security giant IDEMIA Public Security and cryptographic platform Proof today announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration aims to create a privacy-preserving, user-controlled digital identity solution designed to combat rampant online fraud and streamline verification across physical and digital worlds.

The joint effort will combine IDEMIA’s biometric and identity verification technologies with Proof's secure authorization network to deliver Verifiable Digital Credentials (VDCs). This new framework promises to give individuals a single, portable digital ID, fundamentally changing how we prove who we are online and in person.

Addressing a Digital Trust Crisis

The partnership arrives at a critical juncture. The digital economy is grappling with a crisis of trust, fueled by escalating fraud and the immense burden of regulatory compliance. Global losses from online payment fraud are projected to surpass $343 billion between 2023 and 2027. The problem is particularly acute in the United States, which accounted for 42% of global e-commerce fraud in 2024.

Sophisticated new threats are compounding the issue. Cybercriminals are increasingly weaponizing generative AI to create convincing deepfake documents and videos, leading experts to question the long-term viability of traditional verification methods. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 30% of businesses will no longer consider standalone identity verification reliable due to these AI-powered attacks. This reality is reflected in business sentiment, with 67% of companies expecting fraud attempts to intensify this year.

Simultaneously, financial institutions are buckling under the weight of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. In the U.S. and Canada alone, financial crime compliance costs have soared to $61 billion annually. Despite this massive expenditure, processes remain inefficient and prone to error. For many banks, a single corporate client review can take up to 60 days, and the reliance on manual processes introduces significant risk. The frustrating, repetitive nature of these checks also alienates customers, with European institutions losing an estimated €5.7 billion each year from customers abandoning applications.

A New Framework for Identity

The IDEMIA-Proof alliance seeks to build a new foundation of trust to address these challenges. The core of their solution is the Verifiable Digital Credential, a portable, digital wallet-based identity that puts users back in control.

IDEMIA, a trusted provider for over 600 government agencies, will anchor the system by providing the initial high-assurance identity verification, leveraging its deep expertise in biometrics and secure credentialing. Proof will then provide the cryptographic infrastructure, using its Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) based network to secure the VDCs and manage authorizations.

"Proof and IDEMIA Public Security share a vision for a world where identity is both trusted and private," said Pat Kinsel, CEO of Proof, in the announcement. "By connecting biometric authentication and digital transaction trust under one framework, we're creating the infrastructure for people to authenticate and authorize safely anywhere without giving up control of their personal data."

This framework utilizes advanced privacy-preserving technologies. With selective disclosure, a user can prove a specific attribute—such as being over 21—without revealing their full birthdate. With zero-knowledge proofs, they can verify a fact without sharing the underlying data at all. This cryptographic magic minimizes data exposure, drastically reducing the risk associated with data breaches.

From Onboarding to Universal Access

For businesses, particularly in the financial sector, the potential benefits are transformative. The new framework promises to replace clunky, repetitive KYC checks with a seamless, one-time verification that can be securely and instantly reused across different services. This could dramatically reduce customer onboarding times, slash abandonment rates, and lower the staggering operational costs of compliance.

"This partnership sets the new standard for what identity verification experience should be: cryptographically secure, regulator-ready, and fully user-controlled," Kinsel added.

For individuals, the VDC represents a leap forward in digital sovereignty. Instead of having personal data scattered across countless corporate databases, a user holds their own verified credentials in a digital wallet on their smartphone. They maintain full control over where and when their identity is used and can revoke access at any time.

"In the United States, IDEMIA Public Security has long been committed to protecting citizens' identities in both the physical and digital worlds," stated Matt Cole, CEO, IDEMIA Public Security. "Partnering with Proof allows us to extend this legacy into new dimensions — enabling a trusted, privacy-preserving identity that users own."

The Path to an Interoperable Future

The ultimate ambition of the partnership extends beyond solving today's fraud and compliance headaches. It is a foundational play to build one of the first truly interoperable identity frameworks that bridges physical, logical, and digital domains. The vision is for a single digital credential to work seamlessly for everything from making an identity-affirmed payment online (digital), to accessing a corporate network (logical), to entering a secure building (physical).

Achieving this level of interoperability hinges on adherence to open global standards, such as the Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) specifications from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards are crucial for ensuring that credentials issued within the IDEMIA-Proof framework can be accepted and trusted by a global ecosystem of businesses, governments, and service providers.

This initiative aligns with a broader global shift towards portable digital identity. The European Union's updated eIDAS 2.0 regulation, for example, will mandate that all member states offer citizens a digital identity wallet by 2026, designed to support verifiable credentials. The IDEMIA-Proof solution appears well-positioned to serve as the underlying technology for such wallets and similar initiatives worldwide.

While significant hurdles remain, including integrating with legacy systems and building widespread consumer trust, the companies are moving forward with purpose. IDEMIA and Proof are already actively engaging with financial institutions and enterprises to pilot the technology for use cases like secure KYC-sharing and identity-affirmed payments. This proactive engagement signals a determined push to move the concept of a universally trusted digital identity from a theoretical ideal to a practical reality for businesses and consumers alike.