As major rideshare companies compete for even greater shares of the market, they’re placing a heavy focus on fine-tuning onboarding processes. Making it easy for both drivers and riders to join the app is key to quickly expanding user bases, but this speed cannot be achieved at the expense of rigorous driver identity verification and background checks.
The March “Digital Consumer Onboarding Tracker” explores how rideshare companies, online gig marketplaces and other platforms are working to provide even faster and more secure digital onboarding experiences.
Around the Digital Onboarding World
Any online marketplace needs to provide secure onboarding to keep all users safe from fraud. Yet, should the platform slip up, the damage can be very different, depending on who the marketplace is connecting.
Failure to catch fraud early on can derail a project, but the stakes are higher if fraud goes uncaught between would-be home renters and hosts. After all, no one wants to show up at an apartment they think they rented, only to find it was a fake listing, leaving them stranded in a strange city without anywhere to spend the night. Likewise, no homeowner wants to open their doors to bad actors.
With this kind of risk at play, apartment rental platforms are upping their efforts to verify the hosts and guests that they connect. That includes 2nd Address, an online home rental marketplace, which recently adopted a selfie-based verification solution for its users.
Argentina-based Wilobank is also turning to selfies for authentication. The challenger bank now provides smartphone-based know your customer (KYC) and onboarding processes. Customers upload ID documents and create video selfies to confirm their identities, thereby thwarting fraudsters.
However, even while some players advance selfie-based authentication solutions, password use also lingers. That’s a problem because, while passwords aren’t inherently insecure, using them properly is a friction-filled experience for customers, explained Stephen Maloney, executive vice president of business development and strategy for Acuant, in a recent interview. Change, though, is in sight.
Increasingly, companies are adopting more innovative authentication measures, and are tailoring their security approaches to the context of the situation. That includes companies tapping mobile geo-tracking as an additional authentication measure when offering mobile services, or being willing to introduce higher friction authentication for more security-critical operations like bank transfers, while keeping actions like paying for a rideshare more streamlined.
Find the rest of the latest headlines in the Tracker.
Deep Dive: Gig Economy Onboarding and the Push for Faster Payments
Digital marketplaces are also taking fresh approaches to their onboarding security procedures as they seek to woo employers and gig workers alike. These marketplaces must provide robust identity confirmation and authentication, while still enabling freelancers to quickly get set up to start earning funds.
This month’s Deep Dive explores how digital marketplaces are working to provide better payment experiences and more streamlined identity verification procedures.
How Freelancer.com Securely Onboards Global Users
Global freelancing marketplaces face the challenge of providing employers with a wide array of skilled freelancers they can trust to get the job done, and providing workers with confidence that they will be paid. However, smoothly and securely connecting employers with freelancers requires powerful onboarding tools that can entail leveraging a mix of advanced technology and live human support, said Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie.
In this month’s feature story, Barrie spoke about using machine learning, local ID knowledge, live video calls and more to help protect the marketplace’s 32 million users.
About the Tracker
The “Digital Consumer Onboarding Tracker,” powered by Acuant, examines the latest KYC, digital onboarding and online verification news and trends. The Tracker also gauges the roles that technologies, such as biometrics and blockchain, play as identity verification procedures continue to change and expand around the world.
What do the movies “Blade Runner,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Back to the Future Part II” and Spike Jonze’s “Her” all have in common?
These science fiction movies, each depicting various versions of a future full of fantastic technologies, all take place in the year 2025 or earlier.
Though some of the high-tech gadgets and futuristic innovations seen in these films, such as hoverboards and flying cars, haven’t quite materialized in everyday life, they have sparked imagination and set the stage for the very real innovations. As the dozens of groundbreaking products and wacky gadgets that debuted at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week reveal, the future is certainly now.
CES, after all, rarely disappoints when it comes to providing a first-look at some truly strange gadgets that might just represent the ultimate showcase of tomorrow’s technology.
From artificial intelligence (AI) being embedded into everything and smarter than ever home devices, to autonomous robotic companions and wearable tech that both bends and blends reality, many of the inventions that once seemed out of reach in Hollywood films are now being unveiled on the convention floor.
See also: The Five Not-So-Obvious Things That Will Change the Digital Economy in 2025
It’s becoming clear that today’s technological advancements are increasingly bridging the gap between what was once imagined and what’s now becoming real.
For example, smart home robots are no longer a futuristic fantasy — they are being positioned as potentially indispensable components of modern households.
CES 2025 saw the debut of the Roborock Saros Z70, a robot vacuum with a telescopic, five-axis arm. Rosey the Robot from “The Jetsons” has nothing on this little gadget, which its maker describes as “a mechanical arm that sees and thinks,” and is able to pick up and put away items like socks, shoes, tissues and more.
For more serious household tasks, the SwitchBot Multitasking Household Robot K20+ Pro was also unveiled at CES 2025. “Whether it’s delivering objects, vacuuming, monitoring pets, purifying the air, providing home security, or even mobilizing smart tablets, the K20+ Pro juggles household management with ease … from delivering food and drinks to carrying small packages,” said a company release.
Read more: Training Robots Using Video Games Could Democratize Warehouse Automation
The K20+ Pro’s core is designed for customization and flexibility, serving as a modular foundation that allows users to create, adapt, and personalize the robot for a wide variety of innovative applications, and can connect with third-party smart devices like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, ensuring integration into any smart home ecosystem.
Elsewhere, TCL premiered its “AI Me” (Amy) concept companion robot, complete with animated eyes, autonomous movement and an AI-powered camera on its head; while Dreame showcased its X50 Ultra robot vacuum that has legs to avoid obstacles.
As smart home technology continues to evolve, the integration of robots designed to assist in daily activities could significantly alter how we interact with our homes, manage tasks and even shape the future of work.
TomBot, for example, debuted an emotional robotic lap dog, Jennie, an AI robot therapy dog designed to keep seniors company. On the more playful side of things, Tokyo robotics startup Yukai Engineering introduced the Nékojita FuFu, a portable cat-shaped robot that can blow air to cool hot food or drinks.
It wasn’t solely robotics for use at home being showcased at CES. John Deere used the Las Vegas event to reveal its own autonomous agricultural products. The fully autonomous machines were on display from Jan. 7 to 10, and were a bit bigger in size, if equivalently less cute, than the TomBot puppies.
Read more: Google Reportedly Bringing Gemini AI to TV Sets
Behind the strangely futuristic convenience of a robot picking up your laundry and taking out the trash while it vacuums and interfaces with the rest of your household appliances lies a much larger story: the rise of the smart economy.
As CES 2025 showed, augmented reality (AR) glasses are the eye candy of the smart economy. A host of futuristic specs were unveiled, capable of a range of tasks that turn the wearer into a high-tech superhero.
Halliday showcased “the world’s first proactive AI glasses with invisible display,” while freshly debuted Loomos.AI glasses offer a ChatGPT-4o integrated AI assistant.
But other appendages remain up for grabs, and innovative products from smart rings to apps like WowMouse, which allows smartwatch wearers to control devices using just their gestures and fingers, are vying for market share in ways that aim to make daily life more convenient, efficient and secure.