Valid8 says identity assurance is becoming a boardroom discussion

More than 444,000 fraud cases were recorded in the National Fraud Database during 2025, the highest annual total on record and a 6% increase on the previous year, according to Cifas's Fraudscape 2026 report, as cited in a Legal Futures article by Associate Valid8 IP dated 10 November 2026. Identity fraud and facility (account) takeover accounted for 72% of all cases recorded. Cifas highlighted the growing role of AI and generative technologies in enabling convincing impersonations, fake documents and synthetic identities at speed and scale. Valid8 writes that fraud, identity verification and customer onboarding have traditionally been viewed as operational matters but are increasingly becoming topics of discussion at a more strategic level. It says many organisations appear to be looking beyond basic identity verification to identity assurance, with the conversation appearing to move from whether a person's identity has been checked to how confident an organisation is in the evidence behind it. Valid8 points to GPG45, the government's guidance and methodology for establishing confidence in an individual's identity, which aims to build confidence through multiple layers of evidence rather than a single document or data point. It says it sees growing interest in biometric verification, stronger evidence standards and more robust onboarding journeys across legal, claims management, insolvency, debt, mortgage and other sectors. It also says it is closely monitoring developments in identity assurance standards, including GPG45. Valid8 concludes that identity assurance is becoming a boardroom discussion because it is no longer simply a technology issue but also a trust, customer experience and business-risk discussion. The article ends with an invitation to readers to discuss how Valid8 could support their onboarding and identity assurance processes.