About the Identity Verification (IDV) category
What belongs in this category
The Identity Verification (IDV) category covers products that confirm a real person's identity before an organization opens an account, hires someone, grants access or resets credentials. Typical entries check identity documents for forgery, match a selfie to the document photo with liveness detection that confirms a live person is present, check details against trusted data sources, and screen for invented identities and fraud rings.
Biometrics used each time a person signs in fit Biometric Authentication, and reusable digital credentials that the person holds fit Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials. Products that stop fraud after onboarding fit Fraud Prevention. An IDV product for banks can also enter Financial Services.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a product in every category that matches what it does, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the product more than one chance to be recognized.
How entries are judged
An independent jury of security practitioners, analysts and CISOs scores each nomination on leadership, innovation and impact. Each nomination competes in its category against organizations of similar size and region, so a mid-sized firm is not ranked against a global enterprise. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — trust in regulated settings: verifications run, countries and document types covered, customers in banking, government, hiring or online marketplaces.
- Innovation — an identity verification problem solved in a new way, such as detecting deepfakes and images fed straight into the camera stream, verifying people in fewer steps, or checking identity before a help desk resets an account.
- Impact — results for customers: fraudulent identities stopped, completion rates, time to verify, manual reviews avoided. Give figures from deployments.
The jury awards Gold, Silver or Bronze, or a Finalist badge, and results are published on this site and announced to the 600,000+ member Cybersecurity Insiders community. Every approved nomination also enters the separate Community Choice award, decided by public votes.
How to enter
A vendor can enter its own product or service, and a PR agency can enter it on a client's behalf. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as customer names, deployment figures or roadmap. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
