Over 5,000 identity fraud victims sought help from Experian reclaiming their identities during 2009, nearly a 20 per cent increase on 2008. Experian expects attempted identify fraud to significantly increase during 2010. Organisations are keen to protect themselves, their employees and their customers from this growing trend.

Experian's Identity IQ provides electronic verification and security by asking customers a range of randomly generated questions that only the genuine customer should know the answer to. These questions are not necessarily what the customer has provided answers to previously, which could run the risk of being stolen. The questioning technique draws on Experian's vast set of current and historical data to provide a number of relevant and understandable questions for the applicant or customer to answer.

By drawing on Experian's unrivalled consumer data, businesses will be able to validate consumer identities in real-time, have increased confidence in their identity, and eliminate the need for customers to carry paper identity documents or remember a password.

Once an individual is authenticated, they can set their own security questions for use in the next interaction, streamlining the re-authentication process whilst protecting against account takeover and impersonation.

Nick Mothershaw, Director of Fraud and Identity Solutions at Experian, comments, "The significant financial and reputational losses which businesses can incur as a result of identity fraud are too large to be ignored. Businesses need to ensure they are using the best tools to provide a seamless authentication process with minimal customer disruption in order to successfully acquire genuine customers' confidence, whilst making it difficult for impersonators to slip through the net. The detailed and robust level of questioning that Identity IQ offers will provide businesses with added confidence that they are dealing with genuine customers."