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Businesses providing goods and services keep customer records to record information about customers transactions and to better serve the interests of their customers. In most cases, some sort of unique customer identifier is assigned to each customer. But what happens when a customer identifies in a slightly different way over multiple interactions with the company? We are all aware of the infamous duplicate customer record problem.

A customer identifies as “Tony” in one branch in February. The customer returns in April and signs up again and the customer service officer records in their system as “Toni”. Of course, this is a simplified version of what goes on. The problem is persistent, can be more complex, and is everywhere in PNG. So common, that there is even a special term given to it: the “ghost” customer or “ghost” employee or “ghost” teachers, you get the idea.

Many businesses in PNG report to their boards customer numbers that contain these duplicates. Government payroll contains these duplicates. Banks have customer accounts in multiple names for the same natural person. There are also many business that face the issue and don’t know how to go about solving it and “de-duplicating” their records (customers, teachers, accounts, etc.). 

Duplicates like this are a potential source of fraudulent behaviour and it is why anti-money laundering and related regulations focus heavily on “knowing” who the customer is before they are given bank accounts. Adding a biometric capability to your records does not necessarily remove the duplicate records, because the same natural person could come in and register the same biometrics on each account they hold, just at different times, and unless the system is checking the biometric to see if it exists then the duplicate will never be detected. 

In that case, there is the appearance of good security but the duplicates can continue to happily co-exist side by side one another in the institutions system. In this scenario where biometrics are added as an after-thought, each account can only be accessed by the customer who is biometrically registered to that account, but that person may have multiple accounts in different names and the biometric will never reveal this duplication.

In biometrics, they refer to this as a 1:1 or a 1:M matching exercise. When an institution has added biometrics to a system what they are doing is seeing if the biometrics registered match the biometrics of the person trying to access their account – a 1:1 biometric check.

In an identity system like YuTru, a 1:M check is performed before registering an identity. This means that the biometrics are checked for duplicates before the new registration enters the YuTru platform. So, if someone has used a different name for a YuTru identity, then the second time they attempt to register their biometrics will be matched and the new registration prevented. What the YuTru system does is a 1:M check.

The problem of duplicate customers is significant. A single physical customer with accounts held in more than one name means they could avoid outstanding dues, but still transact and receive goods and services under another name. A person may have multiple driver’s licenses and use a different one each time they face a traffic offence. We know of examples where people simply travel out to some other jurisdiction to evade arrest. Implementing an identity system that uses biometrics for customer identification (doing a 1:M check) AND verification (doing the 1:1 check) is critical to a working digital identity scheme, and this is how YuTru functions. 

In some countries their governments stopped payroll fraud permanently and by implementing a scheme like YuTru have lowered the government payroll by 30% overnight just by taking out the duplicates. Do you sometimes wonder if this goes in PNG? It is not an unreasonable thought to have and why the case for YuTru is one we think best made by customers, citizens, and those who identities should be in service of their needs.

The YuTru digital identity platform uses biometrics as THE unique identifier to perform a search and recognise and verify a customer’s identity. When a customer registers for a YuTru ID, their biometrics are captured and linked to their personally identifiable information (PII) – name, date of birth, contact number, and address. When a customer next presents their biometrics to verify their identity, YuTru compares the biometric identifier of the one presented against every other  biometric identifier on the platform – all in less than a third of a second. 

We hope this clears up any misconception about why YuTru is revolutionary for PNG. We want you to understand that we can back up what we say when we say: there is one and only one true You. Are other institutions you hand your identity data and biometrics to, willing to make you the same promise?