Securing Identity Without Data Exposure

With more than 30 age assurance laws now in force globally, the technological landscape for digital verification is shifting rapidly. As platforms scramble to comply with mandates like the UK’s Online Safety Act or various U.S. state regulations, a critical tension has emerged between the necessity of proving a user's age and the mounting risks of storing sensitive biometric data.

The Liability of Server-Side Processing

Traditional methods of age verification often rely on capturing a face and transmitting it to a server for estimation. This centralized approach creates significant security vulnerabilities, as documented by the Identity Theft Resource Center's 2025 Annual Data Breach Report, which recorded 3,322 data compromises in the previous year—a 79% increase over five years. Supply-chain breaches have doubled in that same timeframe, heightening the risks for organizations that aggregate user data.

Beyond the threat of breaches, the rise of agentic fraud—automated attacks facilitated by AI agents—has complicated the verification environment. While these attacks accounted for only 3% of fraud attempts in 2024, they reached 40% by the first quarter of 2026. Projections suggest this figure will climb to over 90% within the next 18 months.

Architectural Privacy and Data Sovereignty

Rather than relying on privacy policies, which function as legal documents rather than technical controls, a growing movement emphasizes privacy through architecture. By performing facial age estimation directly on a user's device, systems can eliminate the transmission and storage of biometric images entirely. Incode has moved toward this model by compressing its models using knowledge distillation, allowing them to function on standard laptops, tablets, or phones without requiring specialized hardware.

Quantifiable Security Metrics

• 3,322 data compromises reported in the U.S. during the prior year.
• 79% increase in data compromises over the past five years.
• 3% of fraud attempts were classified as agentic fraud in 2024.
• 40% of fraud attempts were classified as agentic fraud in the first quarter of 2026.
• 99% spoof detection rate across deepfakes and injection attacks.
• More than 1 million face attacks flagged on the Incode platform in 2026.

The Human Element of Compliance

While on-device processing handles the biometric aspect, server-side metadata analysis remains necessary to detect session tampering, such as injected camera feeds. This hybrid approach ensures that while the user’s face is never exposed or stored, the integrity of the verification session is maintained against sophisticated spoofing. The industry is currently at a turning point where regulatory requirements are meeting consumer demand for more secure data practices.

Every institution shared the same concern with us: how do we fight fraud together without giving up control of our customers' data.

— Itay Levy, Co-Founder and CEO of Identiq

Implications for the Digital Ecosystem

For businesses and consumers, this shift signifies a move away from the assumption that security requires centralized data lakes. The integration of privacy-enhancing technologies—such as those acquired by Incode in its recent $100 million commitment—suggests that future-proofing against fraud will increasingly depend on cryptographic collaboration rather than data pooling. As regulators finalize their views on effective age assurance, organizations that adopt architectures where user data remains local may find themselves better positioned to mitigate both legal and operational risks.