International | Identity providers

The voucher business

Which firms will profit from proving your identity online?

PHYSICAL resemblance may lead to physical attraction, according to Jorn Eiting, a founder of Soul2Match, a Californian site that sets up dates for its users by comparing their faces. To stop cheats (people who post fake photos “that make them look like Brad Pitt”) he has hooked up with miiCard, a service that uses bank-account data to verify online identities.

In the real world people identify themselves mainly by the crude but simple means of showing a government-issued identity document to another human being. In some countries this will be an ID card; in others it can be a passport, driving licence or even a birth certificate.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline "The voucher business"

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From the February 9th 2013 edition

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