Los Angeles – June 21, 2011 – Telesign, a market leader in phone-based authentication and verification services, today announced it has been awarded a U.S. Patent for its PhoneID verification technology. The patented technology analyzes and returns information about phone numbers, including phone type, geographic location, and whether the phone number is valid or invalid. In addition to other use cases, this data can then be integrated as an online company’s user-screening process.
“Statistics show that phones obtained anonymously, such as pre-paid mobile and certain VoIP phones, are significantly more likely to be used by scammers for fraudulent activities,” said Steve Jillings, Telesign CEO. “Our PhoneID technology allows web-based businesses to analyze transactions and decide who gets access, or enable user accounts to be flagged based on phone type.”
With the pervasive use of the Internet for retail and financial transactions and for access to sensitive personal data, web-based businesses require registration as a prerequisite for conducting online transactions. However, registrants often provide false or untraceable email addresses or phone numbers, compromising the legitimacy of the registration. Creating fake accounts is also a favorite ploy of email spammers, who register in bulk and employ dummy accounts to mass-distribute their spam messages.
By identifying anonymous, location-independent telephone numbers, Telesign makes it possible for companies to block or flag potential fraudsters and request the use of an accepted phone type, combatting bulk registrations, securing eCommerce transactions, and stopping spammers.
PhoneID is deployed by some of the largest websites in the world, analyzing phone numbers in over 200 countries. In addition to phone type information, PhoneID returns phone number characteristics including city, state/province, postal/zip code and country for US and international phone numbers.
About the Patent
The patent, U.S. 7,945,034, includes the unique Telesign process for determining the characteristics of a telephone number. It incorporates 34 total claims with independent claims that cover:
- Registering a phone number on a website based on the type of phone in use
- Accepting or denying access to a website based on the phone type
- Verifying the phone number by communicating a verification message
PhoneID was originally developed for use in conjunction with the Telesign Telephone Verification, but is also widely deployed as a standalone product.
About Telesign
With coverage in more than 200 countries and 50 languages, Telesign is the market leader in phone-based verification and authentication services. Telesign has processed more than one billion phone-based authentication transactions in a broad range of categories such as social media, lead generation, online classifieds, financial services, eCommerce and widely distributed cloud-based services. By sending a one-time PIN code via voice or SMS to an end user’s phone, Telesign’s technology authenticates the user in real time, immediately reducing fraud and spam. Telesign provides verification services for the world’s largest and most prominent web companies, transacting more volume than any other service provider, while maintaining industry-leading global deliverability rates with a guaranteed enterprise-level uptime. In addition to Telephone Verification, Telesign also provides Two-Factor Authentication, and PhoneID.For more information about Telesign, visit www.telesign.com