ThisIsMe, South Africa's First Personal Online Verification Authority Launches Amidst a Time in SA When Reported Personal Online Fraud is up by 16% on the Previous Year
With US$50 billion personal online fraud projected for the USA for 2014, what can we expect to happen in South Africa in the next few years?South Africa is in need of a trusted, independent authority to verify and authenticate South African individuals. "Getting South Africans verified through ThisIsMe, is the only way to be sure that we are dealing with actual, legitimate people. In the online world, protecting oneself by taking ownership of one's identity is a trend that is fast becoming a necessity," comments Mark Chirnside, CEO of ThisIsMe. ThisIsMe launched to business in South Africa on 23 September and is the country's first personal online verification authority.
Mark's presentation at the launch stated that a ThisIsMe registered and authenticated account is entirely controlled by the end user. "With the evolution of identity, end user controlled identity management is imperative to the future of online persona control. When signing up with ThisIsMe, every interaction between a third party and the user, is USER approved; every interaction between a third party and the user is logged; only your status is open to a third party, but that is logged and every approval can be revoked."
At the event, Bonita Nuttall of Carte Blanche fame interviewed TV personality, Jeannie D, about her recent Facebook persona which was misrepresented. Claire Cobbledick, Head of Marketing for Gumtree SA addressed the audience showing the country's largest classified website's support for protecting the identities of buyers and sellers online.
"ThisIsMe is the brainchild of a team who believe that authenticating and verifying South Africans is the start of a mature and responsible Internet of the future," adds Mark. "Consumers and websites alike will then be confident that the person they are buying from, meeting, interacting with or selling to, is, in fact, the person who they purport to be. Knowing that they can be traced in the event of a problem (subject to law)."
About ThisIsMe
ThisIsMe is a third party online identification and verification authority. ThisIsMe helps distinguish legitimate online users from false personas, having a ThisIsMe verification is a must and dealing only with other users who have one, is a necessity. http://www.thisisme.com
For more information contact Cheridan Inglis at Touch on [email protected], +27(0)82-567-0800 and http://goo.gl/5QGZ12
