One Minute Blog: Why did Facebook Acquire Confirm.io ?

Consider some of the recent challenges faced by Facebook-

1.     In 2017, Facebook admitted that the suspected Russians were paying to boost posts in the US to influence 2016 presidential elections. Facebook has millions of advertisers and buying ads just needed a FB page and a credit card and some trivial details.
2.       Facebook recently admitted that nearly 10% of its 2.1 billion user base are the fake accounts, arguably a leading source of fake news.

3.       In the event of you forgetting FB password or accounts being locked, Facebook needed to ask users to email the copy of the photo ID and do the verifications offline.

In all probability, to deal with these challenges, Facebook recently acquired identity origination platform company- Confirm.io.

So what does Confirm.io do? 
Based on thecurrently available information, Confirm.io-

• offers to existing customers an API that lets companies verify the authenticity of government-issued IDs.
• It's service also handled biometrics and facial recognition data.
• The company can combine data pulled from an ID card with biometrics data pulled from a mobile device and facial recognition to verify the identity of a person.

Next few months would really tell how this technology is helping achieve the possible objectives of the acquisition but with the trust-deficit widening in the digital world, this technology may just pave the right path to instil more accountability in online interactions.

Here's a sketchnote explaining this acquisition: 

References and inspiration:

https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/23/facebook-acquires-id-verification-startup-confirm-io/

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/facebook-fb-buys-confirmio-strengthens-security-measures-cm909997