Iris Celebrates 20 Years of Providing Identity and Cyber Protection

After 20 years of providing the best in identity protection and fraud mitigation, Iris reflects on its impressive journey while planning for further growth in 2024. 

WASHINGTON – January 16, 2024 – Iris Powered by Generali (“Iris”), provider of proprietary identity and cyber protection solutions, celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year, marking two decades of innovation in developing people-first, technology-forward identity protection services for its clients’ customers. Over the course of 2024, Iris will expand its services even further, evolving from a solely portal-focused provider to a comprehensive platform that allows their clients to offer identity protection to consumers across a variety of different environments, all underpinned by setup and customization options previously unseen in the space. 

“Twenty years ago, our company entered the market with identity protection services as one of the first business-to-business-to-consumer providers in the US, and as the landscape of identity theft and cybercrime evolved, we recognized that technology could make an incredible difference for both identity protection and the broader cybersecurity industry,” said Paige Schaffer, CEO of Iris. “We have achieved a lot over the past 20 years, thanks to our incredible team of software developers, resolution experts, and cybersecurity professionals that have continued to innovate our business and have made all this possible. Complete protection for consumer identities has always been our goal, and we plan to continue delivering on this promise for decades to come.” 

Founded in 2004, Iris (previously operating as Generali Global Assistance’s Identity & Cyber Protection Services) was one of the first organizations to begin providing identity theft resolution services to customers, aiding those affected by cybercrime during the exponential growth of at-home internet access. The company continued to add to its protection offering throughout the following years, with credit monitoring services added in 2006 and identity monitoring services in 2008.

Over the course of the next 12 years, Iris would implement several other key services for customers, including Personal Cyber Protection Services, Small Business Monitoring, Enhanced & Instant Credit Alerts, and Email Health Check. Iris also rolled out its Beneficiary Companion offering giving the loved ones of a recently deceased individual 24/7 access to a team member that will help them deal with the theft or fraudulent use of a deceased loved one’s identity in addition to handling a multitude of administrative details, like the securing of death certificates. In addition to its many offerings for individual users, Iris OnWatch^® was introduced in 2016, providing an easy way for virtually any business to offer identity protection services to its customers – without the need for their own development team to do so.

Outside of its product offerings and services, Iris has long been a champion of consumer education and awareness in the field of cybersecurity. Over the past 7 years, Iris has partnered with the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) and helped to promote Cybersecurity Awareness Month (CAM), encouraging best practices and providing educational resources during the month-long initiative. 

Iris has also continued to expand its reach internationally. Beginning in 2018 with the launch of its European platform for Italy, France, and Germany, they’ve also made their mark in Latin America, Vietnam, Greece, and Japan. Additionally, in 2022, the company expanded into Southeast Asia with a mobile-first dashboard, with research showing that many citizens in this region did not have email addresses, but instead, relied heavily on their cell phones. As a result, Iris revised their login procedure to enable users to log in using their mobile phone number and all alerts to be sent via SMS message.

Over the past three years, Iris has made some of the most significant strides in its mission to provide solutions across the entire spectrum of identity protection. In 2022, Iris introduced its industry-shifting API platform, while also providing more proactive avenues for consumers to protect themselves from scams in 2023 with the introduction of ScamAssist®, an online resource where users can submit suspicious texts, emails, and other correspondence to an always-online team of experts for review. This tool allows consumers to identify and avoid becoming a victim of suspected scams and identify them without ever exposing their personal information, backed up by a 24/7 support team with two decades of experience. 

This latest development fulfills a goal twenty years in the making, with Iris’ platform or services now available through several Fortune 100 companies across a variety of industries, providing a fully packaged and diverse set of tools to help combat the growing instance of identity theft across the world. As Iris celebrates its 20^th anniversary, the company also looks to the future, working to provide true security and robust protection to users worldwide while fighting to close the gap between the increasingly advanced cyberattacks on consumers and the tools they have at their disposal to stay safe online. 

About Iris^® Powered by Generali

Iris^® Powered by Generali is a B2B2C global identity and cyber protection company owned by the 190-year-old multinational insurance company, Generali, offering always-available identity resolution experts (real people, 24/7/365) and tech-forward solutions that uncomplicate the protection process. Understanding that victimization has no geographical boundaries, we've got a solution no matter your customers' coordinates.   

To learn more about Iris' offerings, please visit https://www.irisidentityprotection.com/.

Iris Media Contact

M Group Strategic Communications
IrisPR@mgroupsc.com