TechRound spoke to Paul Williams, Founder and Director at DoorID. Newly launched, DoorID is designed to assist companies in combating address and asset fraud using modern solutions.
Tell Us About DoorID
DoorID helps businesses combat address and asset fraud by gathering strong evidence of physical presence. With AI making convincing documents and images easier to fabricate, businesses need ways to establish what is physically real.
Our address check uses a short, guided journey on a customer’s phone to gather evidence that they are at the address they have provided and can access the property. The same principle applies to assets, such as establishing that a vehicle is physically present at the claimed location before funds are released or a handover takes place.
Businesses receive an actionable signal, with optional API integration, and a supporting tamper-evident evidence pack.
I invented and developed the underlying technology, which is patent pending, after encountering these challenges in our car finance business. Motor finance is our starting point, with wider applications across industries and markets.
What Makes DoorID Unique?
DoorID approaches address verification through proof of presence. The question we set out to answer is whether the applicant is physically at the address and can access the property.
The idea for DoorID came after a genuine customer of our car finance business sent an AI-generated image of her open front door while on holiday. It exposed a worrying gap in fraud prevention to us – documents can carry the right name and address, but can’t prove someone can actually access the property.
This therefore calls for a different kind of evidence from simply checking whether a document appears authentic. DoorID gathers evidence captured live during a guided journey and turns it into an actionable signal, supported by a tamper-evident evidence pack.
We see this as a new class of verification, linking the person, the place and–where relevant–the asset at the point a business needs to make a decision. That underlying methodology gives us a foundation for developing checks across different industries.
What Is Your Advice To Aspiring Entrepreneurs?
There is no silver bullet or motivational quote that will build a business for you, but one piece of advice that has stayed with me is that if you want to get good at business, you need to be in business.
You can spend a long time thinking about an idea but at some point, you have to take the first step and actually put it into practice. Don’t let the fear of making mistakes stop you. You’ll learn things by trying that you could never learn by planning alone.
What Most Excites You About DoorID?
Its potential to help prevent fraud on a global scale. DoorID began with a problem in our own business, but the need for reliable evidence about people, places and assets extends across industries and borders.
I’m excited to see how far the technology can travel and where it can make the greatest difference for the clients who use it. Seeing something I invented become useful to businesses facing the same challenges in other markets would be enormously satisfying.
How Has the Company Evolved Over the Last Couple of Years?
We’ve only just launched, so the evolution so far has been about turning an idea into a product and establishing DoorID as a standalone business.
I began with a problem in our own car finance operation and developed the underlying technology to address it. The work leading up to launch involved testing and refining the checks, the customer journey and how businesses receive the results.
During that development, I recognised wider applications for the methodology across people, places and assets. We’re now at the beginning of taking that work to market, with further products in development.
What Can We Hope To See from DoorID in the Future?
Our ambition is international adoption and a suite of complementary products that help businesses combat fraud across different industries.
We’re building on the underlying technology and methodology to address further situations where a decision depends on a person, place or asset being physically present. That means continuing to develop new checks, refine the customer experience and adapt products to clients’ needs.
Ultimately, I want DoorID to make a meaningful contribution to preventing fraud globally, protecting both businesses and the people whose identities bad actors exploit.
