Hamburg, March 8, 2022 More than four million end users have had their identity confirmed by March 3, 2022, using the Selfie-Ident from the Hamburg-based company Nect to obtain fast and secure access to digital services, for example from their insurance company, their health insurance fund, or their telephone provider. Once verified, the ID document used is automatically stored as a digital identity in the Nect Wallet and can be reused for further processes within seconds. This allows companies to offer their customers uncomplicated and fast access to their services. In addition to ID cards and passports from almost all countries, a variety of other documents can be stored digitally in the Nect Wallet, such as a driver’s license or electronic health card. In this way, Nect is creating a place for citizens’ digital identities that complies with high European data protection standards and is considered a pioneer in terms of user-friendliness.
“The reusability of digital identity has always been the idea behind our app. With the introduction of the Nect Wallet around a year ago, we are enabling end users to identify themselves digitally with various ID documents within seconds and are now building a comprehensive ID ecosystem,” explains Benny Bennet Jürgens, founder and CEO of Nect GmbH. “Our wallet is designed so that it is already ready today to be used as proof of identity for numerous purposes in business and administration – and that across Europe. In addition to identification for all authorities, documents can also be signed with a qualified electronic signature in the Nect Wallet since this year.”
The Nect technology is certified as a trust service module (eIDAS) and, in addition to the regulatory requirements of the Trust Services Act (VDG) and the Trust Services Ordinance (VDV), also complies with the Telecommunications Act (TKG) and other requirements of regulated industries. The use of Nect technology has already proven itself in administration and is recognized for official purposes.
The Nect Wallet provides users with transparency and promotes self-determined use of their own identity. In this sense, only strictly necessary data is transmitted to service providers. For example, in the case of age verification, only the age is transmitted, not the name or other data from the identity document. All processes can be viewed by the user at any time in the so-called timeline of the Nect Wallet. The product is operated fail-safe and in Germany on hardware of Nect GmbH. The user’s digital identity and thus the stored digitized identity documents are linked to the device used and the user’s face (two-factor authentication).
The Nect app has been used since 2018 as part of activation processes, for example for registration in a customer portal. Nect’s patented technology has since proven itself in many millions of processes and is considered the best-rated app for identity verification in Germany.
The identification process based on the technology developed specifically by Nect includes the video recording of an ID document as well as the recording of a selfie video. Supported by artificial intelligence, the document and the person from the selfie video are compared in an automated process, and the authenticity of the recordings and the ID document is checked. After around two minutes, the process is complete and the identity is confirmed to the service provider. The customer receives immediate access. Since the beginning of this year, the user can alternatively use the eID function of the ID card. At the same time, the ID document is digitized and stored in the Nect Wallet, so that the app becomes a digital, multifunctional ID.
Nect GmbH is a multi-award-winning IT company based in Hamburg. Founded in 2017 by Benny Bennet Jürgens and Carlo Ulbrich, Nect stands for the implementation of fully automated trust services with highly developed technology. The Robo-Ident technology developed and patented by Nect was first used in 2018 in the form of Selfie-Ident, an AI-based online identification via app, at R+V Versicherung. Meanwhile, other well-known companies, including Telekom Deutschland, BARMER, and the Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank (IFB), are part of the customer base. In addition to Selfie-Ident, Nect offers a solution for the qualified electronic signature (QES) as well as the Nect Wallet, which functions as a digital ID and enables the reuse of digital identity in a few seconds.
Data security and data protection are the focus of Nect solutions. This is ensured both by the complete in-house development of the software components and the use of data centers in Germany with an extraordinarily high security level and the avoidance of cloud solutions.
