Digital identity verification is entering a new phase in which biometrics, mobile network intelligence and automated authentication orchestration are replacing passwords and static document checks as the principal means of establishing whether users really are who they claim to be.
New figures from Juniper Research forecast that the number of digital identity verification checks conducted worldwide will reach 175 billion by 2030, with biometric verification set to become the fastest-growing method.
At the same time, mobile authentication specialist IPification has launched what it claims is the industry’s first open-source universal authentication software development kit, designed to make GSMA Open Gateway network APIs easier for app developers and digital service providers to implement.
Taken together, the two developments suggest that the future of digital identity will not be built around one supposedly infallible authentication technology, but rather it will depend on platforms capable of combining identity documents, facial biometrics, liveness detection, SIM data, mobile network signals and fallback authentication channels in real time.
For telemedia companies, this could reshape everything from customer onboarding and subscription activation to account recovery, payment approval and fraud prevention.
Biometrics take on the AI fraud problem
According to Juniper Research, the number of biometric verification checks will increase from 32.2 billion in 2026 to 70.1 billion in 2030, representing growth of 117.6%.
Traditional document verification will continue to account for the largest absolute volume of identity checks, but Juniper believes its growth will be considerably slower than that of biometrics.
The reason is not that documents have suddenly become irrelevant. Regulated businesses will continue to need passports, driving licences and other official credentials to meet Know Your Customer, age-verification and anti-money laundering requirements.
The problem is that a document, on its own, is becoming less reliable as proof that the person presenting it is genuine.
Generative AI has dramatically reduced the cost and skill required to produce convincing false documents, altered images and synthetic identities. Static checks can establish that a document appears legitimate, but they cannot necessarily prove that it belongs to the person holding the device.
Biometrics add a live, dynamic layer to that process, matching the individual to the document while checking for signs that a face, voice or other biometric signal has been manipulated.
“Businesses continue to pivot toward biometric solutions; prioritising seamless liveness detection and real-time facial recognition over manual, high-friction document uploads,” says Juniper Research analyst Shane O’Sullivan.
This does not mean documents will disappear. Rather, they are becoming one element within a much wider identity decision.
Juniper says enterprise buyers are consequently consolidating their spending around unified platforms that can orchestrate both document and biometric signals. Instead of returning a simple pass or fail, these systems will increasingly generate dynamic trust scores based on liveness, contextual data and the perceived level of risk surrounding a particular transaction.
A low-risk customer renewing a familiar subscription on a known device may therefore pass through almost invisibly. Someone opening multiple accounts from an unfamiliar location, using a recently issued number and presenting a questionable document may be asked to complete additional checks.
The aim is to make security proportional to risk, rather than imposing the same cumbersome identity journey on every customer.
Open Gateway needs an on-ramp
That move towards identity orchestration is also visible in IPification’s Universal Authentication SDK, launched for Android and iOS last week.
The open-source software is compatible with the CAMARA API framework underpinning GSMA Open Gateway and is intended to give developers a single integration point for multiple phone-verification and mobile-authentication channels.
GSMA Open Gateway has helped mobile operators standardise access to network capabilities through common APIs. IPification says the initiative now covers more than 80% of global mobile connections, but argues that enterprises still face significant differences in how those APIs are deployed across operators, countries and network infrastructures.
In other words, standardising the language of the APIs does not automatically make every operator implementation identical.
“The industry has done the hard work of standardising the APIs through CAMARA, but for a developer, ‘standardised’ doesn’t always mean ‘plug-and-play’,” says IPification chief executive Stefan Kostic.
The company’s SDK is designed to bridge that gap by sitting between the application and the various operator or authentication services available in each market.
Rather than forcing the developer to choose one authentication method, it uses a configurable, real-time fallback system. The software can attempt SIM-based authentication or IP-based silent phone-number verification before moving to instant messaging or one-time-password channels when the preferred network signal is unavailable.
This matters because mobile authentication rarely takes place under perfect conditions. A user may be connected to Wi-Fi, roaming, using a dual-SIM handset, sitting behind an IPv6 network or dealing with an operator that does not yet support the same APIs as a neighbouring carrier.
IPification says its SDK can force an authentication request over the cellular network without disrupting the user experience, while also handling both IPv4 and IPv6 connections.
On Android devices, it can also prepopulate a phone number using SIM information or Google’s phone-number hint functionality, supporting silent verification in under two seconds.
Authentication becomes a decision, not a method
There is an obvious connection between IPification’s approach and the findings from Juniper Research.
Both point towards identity systems that dynamically select and combine signals rather than relying on one fixed authentication mechanism.
Biometrics can establish that a real person is present. Documents can provide a regulated identity credential. Mobile network APIs can help confirm that a device, number and SIM are genuinely connected to the user attempting the transaction.
Additional network intelligence could then be used to identify potentially suspicious conditions, such as a recent SIM swap, a number change or an inconsistency between the device and the claimed customer identity.
Individually, none of these signals is perfect. Combined, they can make fraud considerably harder while allowing legitimate customers to move through onboarding and payment journeys with fewer passwords, uploads and one-time codes.
This is particularly significant for telemedia businesses operating subscriptions, premium content, carrier billing, messaging and digital entertainment services.
Such companies often need to balance rapid conversion against the risk of account takeover, subscription fraud, unauthorised payments and increasingly sophisticated synthetic identities. Adding more security screens can reduce fraud but also increases abandonment. Removing friction can improve sales but expose the service provider to greater losses.
Adaptive authentication offers a route between the two.
A customer whose SIM, device and behaviour all match previous activity could be authenticated silently. A higher-risk transaction could trigger facial verification, an additional network check or a conventional OTP.
The customer sees friction only when the risk justifies it.
Transparency joins security
IPification’s decision to release the SDK as open source also reflects a growing concern around the opacity of digital identity technology.
Banks, fintechs, telecoms providers and regulated digital platforms increasingly need to understand exactly what an authentication library is doing, which information it accesses and how customer data is handled.
By allowing developers to inspect the client-side code, IPification is seeking to remove the “black box” concerns associated with proprietary authentication tools and make privacy and security auditing easier.
That transparency could be important as telecom network APIs move deeper into financial services, ecommerce, social platforms and entertainment apps.
IPification says its wider authentication technology is deployed across more than 150 mobile network operators, reaching 4.9 billion people across 40 live markets, with another 20 markets in deployment.
However, the significance of the SDK is less about the reach of one supplier than the broader attempt to make operator intelligence usable at scale.
Open Gateway will only fulfil its potential if developers can connect to network capabilities without building separate integrations for every carrier and every country. A universal orchestration layer could therefore do for authentication what payment orchestration platforms have attempted to do for cards, wallets and alternative payment methods: hide complexity while selecting the best available route.
From identity check to identity fabric
The wider market is heading towards what might be described as an identity fabric: a constantly updated combination of biometric, documentary, behavioural, device and network information.
Within that model, identity verification stops being a one-off hurdle placed at the start of the customer journey. It becomes an ongoing process that can adapt as the relationship, transaction and level of risk change.
This is the real significance of Juniper’s biometric growth forecast and IPification’s Open Gateway development.
AI-generated fraud is making static evidence less trustworthy. At the same time, consumers expect account opening, payments and subscriptions to happen almost instantly.
The only practical response is to use more signals while showing the customer fewer authentication steps.
For operators and telemedia providers, this creates an opportunity to turn trusted network information into a central component of the digital identity market. For developers, it means authentication will increasingly be something orchestrated automatically in the background rather than built around a single login method.
And for customers, the best outcome may be that identity verification becomes both more sophisticated and much less visible.
