Fraudsters using AI, stolen social media photos to bypass bank security – Expert

An information technology expert, Ola Olasiyan, has called for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence-powered biometric systems in Nigeria’s banking sector to tackle rising cases of fraud and identity theft.

In a statement on Saturday, Olasiyan, who is the regional head at identy.io, said fraud linked to stolen identities and unauthorised access to customer accounts remained one of the biggest threats facing the financial sector.

Speaking ahead of an executive roundtable on mobile biometric innovation for Nigerian banking on Thursday, he said integrating AI-powered facial recognition and fingerprint verification into banking transactions would make it harder for fraudsters to gain access to customer accounts.

“The new technology we are bringing will help prevent that because transactions will be tied to biometrics, specifically a person’s face and fingerprints.

“With that, nobody can use your credit card or access your account unless they have your biometric information,” he said.

According to him, the technology incorporates “liveness detection,” a feature designed to verify that biometric data presented during transactions belongs to a real human being and not fake or manipulated information.

Olasiyan said Nigerian banks had already taken major steps to strengthen customer verification through the Bank Verification Number initiative but noted that fraud methods were becoming increasingly sophisticated.

He warned that some fraudsters now attempt to use stolen social media images and AI-generated deepfakes to bypass security systems.

“We are introducing AI-powered systems that can prevent spoofing attempts, such as someone taking your image from social media platforms like LinkedIn and trying to use it to access your account,” he said.

He added that mobile biometric systems could also simplify customer onboarding by allowing users to complete account verification directly through their smartphones instead of relying on third-party agents.

On data security, Olasiyan stressed that Nigeria must retain local control of sensitive biometric databases.

“Biometric databases should remain in Nigeria. Sensitive identity data should not be hosted abroad or entirely in the cloud without local control,” he said.

He further stated that integrating advanced AI into the Automated Biometric Identification System used by financial institutions could strengthen fraud prevention and identity verification across the banking industry.