Hamburg, 28/09/2022 Hamburg-based Nect GmbH is a pioneer in user-friendly identity verification for statutory health insurers and insurance companies with its Nect Wallet and the AI-based solutions integrated into it for simple and secure identification. In addition, with the Nect Wallet the company offers age verification for customers of companies in rapidly growing sectors such as lotteries, gaming, e-sports, streaming, and e-commerce. Youth protection is a major challenge, especially online. With Nect, users can prove their age in just a few seconds. Anyone who has previously used the Nect Wallet, for example to register with their insurer, can even reuse their already stored ID document again within seconds thanks to the reuse function. If the user is not yet known in the Nect Wallet, the AI can complete the ID document check within two minutes. Also included is identity verification via eID (the electronic function of the German ID card). All three options (reuse, AI-based identification, or eID) are certified by the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM). This gives customers three certified, high-converting identification methods via a single integration through the Nect Wallet.
Youth protection is becoming increasingly important for more and more of the rapidly growing number of online entertainment applications. One reason for this is, among other things, the State Treaty on Gambling adopted last year, in which the protection of underage persons plays a central role. Anonymous gaming on the internet is now generally prohibited for minors. Legal gambling portals must ensure that they grant access to their services only to adults—by means of legally compliant identification.
The amendment to the Youth Protection Act also obliges providers of video, music and gaming services as well as social networks, chatroom and dating platforms to provide special protection for young people under 18. This is not only about content that may be harmful to minors, but also about hidden cost traps—such as in-app purchases—and, for example, preventing children and young people from becoming victims of cyberbullying. Providers of platforms for films and video games must also ensure that their offerings have gone through an official age-rating process.
Nect’s patented technology checks optically variable security features during the identification process, performs a facial match, and carries out a document check. The age verification developed by Nect estimates age within this process based on the facial capture and the ID photo and compares it with the data on the document, including the date of birth. Thanks to Nect’s large data base, the company’s specially trained machines are able to perform the age estimate comparatively accurately. Aspects such as skin color, wrinkles, facial features, and make-up are taken into account. On average, a human misjudges this by around 6.3 years. The AI has proven that it can enable a significantly more accurate assessment.
Benny Bennet Jürgens, founder and CEO of Nect GmbH: “Youth protection on the internet is becoming increasingly important and should be as simple and at the same time as secure as possible. Our solution creates the prerequisite for users to identify themselves independently, easily and quickly, while capturing their age as accurately as possible. The around six million users who have already verified themselves with the Nect Wallet for another service, for example a mobile network provider, can simply reuse their ID document for age verification. This means the process takes only a few seconds and the hurdle for the user is reduced thanks to the minimal effort. For providers, this means greater certainty that their customers really meet the legal age limits. This enables them to offer their services only to adult customers and thus comply with the increasingly strict youth protection regulations.”
ZEAL Network SE, Germany’s leading provider of online lotteries, has been using the Nect solution for identification and age verification since mid-2022. ZEAL offers, among other things, LOTTO 6aus49, Spiel 77, Super 6, GlücksSpirale and the Deutsche Fernsehlotterie online. The Polish company Zetly GmbH, provider of a personalized, multi-level platform based on sports apps, is also already using the Nect solution to identify its customers.
Nect GmbH is a multi-award-winning IT company headquartered in Hamburg. Founded in 2017 by Benny Bennet Jürgens and Carlo Ulbrich, Nect stands for the implementation of fully automated trust services with highly advanced technology. The technology developed and patented by Nect was first used in 2018 in the form of Nect Ident, an AI-based online identification via app, at R+V Versicherung. Today, other well-known companies, including ADAC, BARMER and Telekom Deutschland, are also among its customers. In addition to Nect Ident, the company offers Nect Sign, a solution for the qualified electronic signature (QES), as well as the Nect Wallet, which acts as a digital ID and enables reuse of the digital identity in just a few seconds. Data security and data protection are at the heart of Nect’s solutions. This is ensured both by the complete in-house development of the software components and by the use of data centers in Germany with an exceptionally high security level, as well as by not using cloud solutions.
