Trulioo Lands $500,000 to Bring Smartphone Student IDs to Universities

February 28, 2014

Vancouver’s Trulioo has teamed up with European ID document verification startup ID Checker to develop a mobile technology aimed at replacing the traditional university student ID card.

The project has been awarded nearly $500,000 in funding from an international government grant program called EUREKA. The progran focuses on supporting large-scale projects involving collaboration and trade between companies in different participating countries.

A customizable mobile application code named “Mobilekey” will be developed capable of automating student enrollment, including remote global identity verification and issuing secure student credentials. The app will also support on-campus payments and other transactional activities using a smartphone.

“We are extremely excited to be working with ID Checker on this cutting edge technology,” said Trulioo’s CEO Stephen Ufford. “This technology will not only make paying for things around campus easier, but will enable remote learning and graduation from leading universities for students from in over 200 countries.”

Recently, traditional Canadian and US universities have begun pursing distance education opportunities as a new source of revenues on the heels of success stories like Coursera and Udacity. However, a major obstacle in accepting tuition from overseas students is that US law requires that each student identity be verified before a diploma can be issued.

“Its difficult and expensive for universities to do this at scale, having to rely on staff to visually inspect scanned or faxed copies of passports from around the world,” explained Michael Hagen, CEO of ID Checker. “The app will verify identity by asking students to sign into their social networking account, as well as snapping a photo of their government issued ID card with their smartphone camera. The combination of social verification with automated document verification is powerful and global.”

If the app works well in education, its not difficult to image that it might have application in other verticals like banking, gaming and healthcare which all face similar challenges around identity and secure credentials. “We love to work on big problems here at Trulioo,” said Ufford.