Thirdfort saw a 48% rise in estate agents using its client due diligence platform over the past year, as more firms looked for better ways to tackle growing concerns over artificial intelligence (AI)-powered identity fraud.
Research by Cifas found AI-driven identity fraud cases increased by 5% compared to 2023, reaching record levels.
Identity fraud continued to be the most common type of fraud, with 86% of cases carried out online.
Criminals took advantage of remote, digital-first working, which has led to more cases of digital impersonation.
In response, estate agents have turned to digital ID checks and other measures to protect against these threats.
Thirdfort said its technology verifies documents, checks if they have been reported lost or stolen, and validates information across several steps.
Olly Thornton-Berry, co-founder and CEO of Thirdfort, said: “The topic of AI is increasingly coming up in sales and onboarding conversations with property professionals.
“Yet whilst it’s becoming easier for criminals to create convincing fake documents, we have specific protocols in place to protect against these risks.
“Thirdfort’s identity verification solutions use NFC-based ID verification and biometric chip reading to extract and validate data, performing ‘liveness’ checks by matching a user’s facial scan with the photo on their passport chip.”
