Why You Should Build-Your-Own Identity Protection Program

Estimated Reading Time: 5 Minutes

“On this day 20 years ago…”

If you have an iPhone, Facebook, or something in between, you may have seen your personalized “year in review” or “memories” of what you were up to during that time. But have you ever really thought about how different life was 20 years ago?

A lot can change in 20 years, including the identity fraud landscape and the technology available to businesses to help their customers protect themselves.

Humor us as we take a quick stroll down memory lane and review a couple of events that impacted the identity and personal cyber protection space…

In 2004:

• Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dorm
  
  
• Google introduces Gmail
  
  
• Iris^® Powered by Generali (known then as Europ Assistance USA) provides identity theft resolution services in the U.S.

Yep, you read that right. We’ve been in the identity protection space for 20 years. In 2004, we saw a void in the identity theft protection market. We became one of the first companies to provide identity protection in the U.S. with white-glove resolution assistance and, later, the first iteration of our identity protection portal.

A few years later, with the release of the first-ever iPhone and the boom of the Internet and other Internet-connected devices, consumer concerns around data breaches, scams, and identity fraud continued to rise. This concern was also exacerbated by the plethora of tactics fraudsters used to steal consumers’ personally identifiable information.

Over the years, Iris has gleaned valuable insights into consumers’ behavior and needs regarding identity protection tools and services – including how they want to access the tools and resources and where they expect to receive or purchase them.

A New Way to Offer Identity Protection

With two decades of experience and research highlighting the businesses consumers expect – nay, demand – to receive identity and personal cyber protection, Iris is giving businesses a new way of offering identity protection to their customers: the Iris Identity Protection Platform.

With the Iris Identity Protection Platform, our partners can build their program from the ground up – crafting their ideal program based on their unique business needs, goals, technical capabilities, and customer behavior and desires. From choosing how their customers access the tools to designing the UI and UX experience to selecting the solutions that best fit their target market and the monitoring vendors businesses want to use – Iris’ identity protection technology is now the most personalized and consumer-accessible solution available.

What Companies Could Benefit the Most from Using the Iris Identity Protection Platform?

Is there a product and brand fit alignment between your core business, target audience, and identity protection? Does your brand want the choice to control the UI and UX experience and have the technical resources needed to accomplish it – given the appropriate support? Is your company seeking to fill a product gap and believes a dedicated identity protection portal or a standalone micro-experience can help you meet your target markets’ needs? Are you looking to enhance your mobile app or subscriber/member experience? What about bundling it with other complementary products or subscription packages?

The Iris Identity Protection Platform may be the best fit for your business.

The Iris Platform gives brands – retailers, financial institutions/fintechs, insurers, smart home providers, internet service providers, security & privacy companies, etc. – the flexibility around the:

• User interface. More and more consumers are looking for identity protection that feels familiar, ideally embedded into an existing digital experience they’re already used to. Not only will this encourage usage of the brand’s mobile app or online subscriber experience, but it will positively impact the brand, fortifying brand reputation and customer loyalty as well. There’s also a market of consumers that want a dedicated and separate portal – Iris can do that, too – giving your business the flexibility to decide which experience option fits your audience the best.
  
  
• Offered services and features. Depending on your industry, your brand may want to differentiate itself and provide a distinctive and vividly unique program. Choose the right mixture of monitoring, tools, resolution, and educational resources based on your specific market’s needs and concerns.
  
  
• Customer journey engagement tools. Some consumers may have feelings about the value of purchasing a comprehensive identity protection program. Offering them one or two individual features as a teaser or introduction of sorts can help put their minds at ease and encourage the adoption of a more enhanced program.
  
  
• Monitoring vendors and data management. As many brands know, not all vendors – even those serving the same market – are equal. Different monitoring vendors categorize data in various ways. With the Iris Identity Protection Platform, businesses like yours can rely on Iris to stay on top of aggregating, reconciling, and processing the raw data – giving you a shortcut to offer extensive identity monitoring coverage to your customers. Plus, you decide whether the data passes through your system to Iris via API or, depending on your risk tolerance and storage capabilities, Iris will handle the data directly so your systems never touch it.

While there are other identity protection providers out there, we’d dare to say you won’t find another partner with the breadth and depth of flexible technology and a people-first attitude like Iris^® Powered by Generali. So, if protecting your customers and differentiating your brand are part of your business goals, contact us to learn how to get started.

Check out our latest whitepaper, which explores the fraud landscape from 20 years ago to the present day, and the opportunities businesses like yours can take advantage of to encourage a more “sticky” and accessible customer experience.