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Biometric Encyclopedia

New Account Fraud

New Account Fraud (NAF) occurs when a fraudster creates an account to access goods or services under false pretenses to commit crime, steal money, launder money, or gain access to services they wouldn’t be able to access legitimately using their own identity.

New account fraud can be carried out in different ways. Firstly, a criminal could steal someone else’s identity to create new accounts, for example applying for a credit card or for government benefits. The information usually comes from data breaches or social engineering techniques (such as phishing, where people inadvertently disclose information, often because of psychological manipulation).

Alternatively, criminals can create synthetic identities for more complex new account fraud attacks. This is where the criminal combines several elements to create a fake person – some pieces of data might relate to a real person, but others will be invented, randomized, or stolen from others in order to open a new account.

Biometric face verification prevents new account fraud because it asks the person setting up the account to scan their face during enrollment, which can then be compared with the photo in a government-issued identity document that they also provide. This prevents identity theft and synthetic identity fraud, as the physical face would not match the identity document.

Learn More About New Account Fraud

Article: New Account Fraud: The Cost of Unknowingly Onboarding Fraudsters

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