One-time KYC vs. continuous verification

Legacy KYC verifies that a document exists. Polyguard verifies the person using it — on a real device, in a real place, right now. And it does so again every time the stakes are high.

Capability	Legacy KYC	Polyguard
Confirms the document is real	Yes OCR + database lookup	Yes Cryptographic NFC verification of the chip
Confirms the person matches the document	Partial Selfie-vs-photo, often spoofable	Yes Live 3D facial recognition, 98%+ certainty
Confirms a real device, not an emulator	No No device attestation	Yes Apple AppAttest / Google Play Integrity
Confirms the person is physically at the device	No Blind to remote-access attacks	Yes PG-Presence optical distance bounding
Re-verifies identity on every high-value action	No Point-in-time onboarding only	Yes Continuous verification, ~100ms per check
Produces a court-admissible record	No Audit logs only	Yes Transaction Affidavit, NY CPLR § 3122-a
Keeps biometrics off your servers	No Often stored or processed centrally	Yes Privacy First — biometrics stay on device

Confirms the document is real

Legacy KYC

Yes

OCR + database lookup

Polyguard

Yes

Cryptographic NFC verification of the chip

Confirms the person matches the document

Legacy KYC

Partial

Selfie-vs-photo, often spoofable

Polyguard

Yes

Live 3D facial recognition, 98%+ certainty

Confirms a real device, not an emulator

Legacy KYC

No device attestation

Polyguard

Yes

Apple AppAttest / Google Play Integrity

Confirms the person is physically at the device

Legacy KYC

Blind to remote-access attacks

Polyguard

Yes

PG-Presence optical distance bounding

Re-verifies identity on every high-value action

Legacy KYC

Point-in-time onboarding only

Polyguard

Yes

Continuous verification, ~100ms per check

Produces a court-admissible record

Legacy KYC

Audit logs only

Polyguard

Yes

Transaction Affidavit, NY CPLR § 3122-a

Keeps biometrics off your servers

Legacy KYC

Often stored or processed centrally

Polyguard

Yes

Privacy First — biometrics stay on device

Tour stop 7

Legacy KYC vs. Polyguard

A capability-by-capability comparison. Why one-time IDV is a 2019 solution.

The pattern

Legacy IDV vendors confirm that a document exists and that the photo on it roughly resembles the person on the other end of a selfie. That was a fine answer in 2018, before generative AI made face swapping trivial and before remote-access kits became a commodity.

Polyguard confirms the person, the document, the device, and the physical presence — together, in one Trust Check, and then again every time something high-stakes happens.

Three concrete attacks legacy KYC misses

Synthetic identity. Real SSN + invented name + plausible address. Document scans pass, credit bureaus pass. PG-Presence still requires a real face on a real device — synthetic identities don't pass that.

Account takeover via remote access. A phishing kit installs a remote-control tool on the customer's machine. Legacy KYC at signup is irrelevant — the original signup was real. Polyguard's continuous verification catches the wire authorization that the legitimate customer never made.

Deepfake selfie loops. A pretrained model fakes the liveness selfie. Many vendors race to retrain their classifiers every time a new model drops. Polyguard never relied on the selfie alone; you can't fake the NFC chip on a passport, you can't fake the device attestation, and you can't fake PG-Presence — they all have to line up at once.

The bottom line

One-time KYC verifies that a credential exists. Polyguard verifies the person — every time it matters.

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