How Do You Know If You’re Working with Impostors?
How do you prove someone really is who they say they are?
By Bobby Alger, Marketing —
The funeral of Nelson Mandela in 2013 was attended by dignitaries from around the world. The funeral was the largest gathering of world leaders since the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. During the television broadcast of the funeral, no one received more airtime than Thamsanqa Dyantyi (or Jantije).
Dyanti served as a South African sign language interpreter for the event. Standing side-by-side with speakers such as Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren. Dyanti was televised for the entirety of the program, dutifully interpreting the eulogies. There was one problem: Thamsanqa Dyantyi doesn’t actually know sign language.
Imposter at the funeral
Members of the South African deaf community complained that the interpreter was “signing rubbish” that “did not make sense”. A sign language trainer from the Deaf Federation of South Africa said that the ‘interpreter’ was ‘not known to the deaf community or other interpreters in South Africa’.
During the investigations that followed, Dyantyi told the BBC that he “had a breakdown when he [saw] angels come [from] the sky,” though he maintains that he was doing legitimate interpretation work.
How can you prove someone really is who they say they are?
Documents can be faked and identities can be stolen, but a new technology from Converus dubbed IdentityDetect can help accurately detect individuals that are being deceptive about their identity or credentials. IdentityDetect analyzes how individuals respond to knowledge-based authentication (KBA) questions, confirming the truth—or exposing the lies—of the individual.
As Malcolm Gladwell explains in his book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know (2019), humans are easily deceived. That’s why Converus has turned to science and technology to eliminate human error from deception detection. IdentityDetect has a 91% accuracy rate and results are available almost instantaneously.
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Photo by / John-Paul Henry
