Sept. 9, 2024
How can you be certain the things you read online are true? With fake news more prevalent than ever, it's increasingly necessary to have tools to verify the information we encounter. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the increasingly crucial practice of text verification, and explore new technologies and approaches to securing content integrity across a range of fields. Once you understand the significance of verifying text, you'll be able to leverage that knowledge to move through the world wide web with confidence, make educated choices, and shield yourself from the fallout of false information.
Text verification means confirming that something is accurate and true--nothing could be more important in today's day and age of internet, because the internet is full of lies. When we talk about verifying text, we mean the ways in which we confirm that the text lives up to the claims or standards that it needs to reach. It's important for a lot of reasons, because people do things like write research and news articles, and those articles need to be true.
Verifying text is reviewing to compare the text to other reliable sources or real-world information. For example, if there's a news article about an event, that article should be compared to official records, other news articles, eyewitness accounts--then we can trust that people can't easily share "fake news", and that readers can trust what they read. Reviewing is also to make sure that people aren't writing lies or half-lies that other people could use to mislead or take advantage of.
And that's just talking about the readers; when we're talking about law, healthcare, finance--things like that--then it gets way more important. Like in law, a small mistake could lead to huge consequences like imprisoning an innocent person or losing a case that should have been won. Medicine is the same; the numbers in a chart need to be right so someone doesn't get hurt. Likewise, business and finance need reliable numbers to make sure that businesses are doing what they say they're doing, and that investors can make informed decisions. It's not relevant unless it's verified and reliable for the people who are going to count on it to make a decision.
Text verification tools have come a long way. Now we can use cross-referencing against databases and natural language processing (NLP) tools to verify text, and it's so much faster and accurate.
Cross-referencing is just checking that the text matches or is confirmed by other established records or databases. This is so important! People often take old or incorrect information and treat it as fact. By cross-referencing against databases that are widely accepted as true and authoritative, you can verify in a flash that the information really is true.
The other tool, NLP tools, is cool because it can automate a lot. Natural language processing can look at the structure and semantics of your text, and based on that information a computer can tell you if something doesn't make sense or is off. For example, if a medical claims document is discussing a jargon or procedure that is no longer used or relevant the NLP tools will flag it as an error. Together, using both tools makes the process of verification very fast and the results very accurate.
Text verification is important because of laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), a consumer protection law which allows people to dispute false debts.
Debt collectors are required by the FDCPA to provide validation of the debt in question. So you can understand why it is so important to validate all text related to transactions and consumers – so that consumers are not harassed and deceived.
Under the FDCPA, consumers have a clear course of action if they feel that they are being overcharged. They have 5 days to dispute a debt after receiving a notice, and all collection activities must halt until the validation is verified. So, in a way, text validation actually serves to benefit consumers and ensure the accuracy of financial documents. Consumers can also sue for damages under the FDCPA, meaning the law acts as a great tool to help keep debt collectors in check and effectively even the playing field in the financial industry.
In the digital age, being genuine and ensuring truth are important. There are tons of text verification tools on the market to help protect users, defend against undeclared affiliation, and uphold truth in various industries, ranging from automated verification systems, to SMS verification, to AI writing assistance, to privacy-first services that protect individuals and make verification easy.
How do check systems do it? They use sophisticated algorithms to review the information for patterns and peculiarities (like in Electronic Health Records, or EHRs) to keep health information accurate by validating the information from a good source automatically... and with fewer mistakes. So for instance a patient is flagged with an allergy to a drug, it won't let a doctor pick a drug that's contraindicated with that one when the doctor goes to order.
Checks aren't just accurate, they're fast; they can review a lot of information nearly instantly, so healthcare providers can look up patient histories in real-time without checking it themselves. By automating the 'busy work' of checks, healthcare providers can spend more time on patient care—and provide a higher quality of care—all while meeting all the laws and rules that regulate medical records.
Text verification is a way to verify text. You can send a one-time password (OTP) to your user's mobile number so they can verify account access--it's the most secure way to keep your app secure and make sure people who shouldn't be in your app aren't. When your user gets an OTP, they get an extra layer of protection; if an attacker tries to log in without the OTP, it's game over, and your app has kept someone out.
Businesses use SMS verification to offer frictionless text verification as a part of their customer onboarding. For example, an e-commerce company can use SMS verification to make sure their customers are really their customers before they go through with a transaction or sign up. That's all there is to it, and it works--SMS verification is now a trusted tool in ensuring that only the right people can get into and perform actions on their accounts. Everyone uses SMS verification because it just plain works.
Proofreading software like Text Verification Tools (TVT) can help to keep documentation quality high in regulated environments like pharma. It can automate almost anything you can imagine—including text verification, spelling, artwork, barcodes, etc—helping to prevent human errors and ensuring your documentation meets regulations and, most importantly, patient safety.
It also has a reporting function that vastly simplifies submission workflows for teams. For instance, every time a company brings a new drug or device to market, they have to check the labels, instructions, marketing materials, etc. to ensure they meet regulations. With TVT, you only have to check the documents once they're proofed, which also speeds up the process and saves your team time for other activities that add value. Ultimately, companies that use automated verification can proof faster, cheaper, and with less risk.
Services like Textverified make it easy to keep your personal information private by using temporary telephone numbers for online verifications. This can come in very handy for anyone who wants to ensure that personal information stays as private as possible, but still wants to be able to verify various online accounts. You can specify a temporary number for the verification and don't have to use your own number at all.
You not only get to keep your privacy with this kind of verification, but you can have multiple online accounts for different reasons without the annoyance of dealing with spam calls on your main phone number and platform. Textverified lets you "rent" phone numbers for a single verification purpose or on a longer-term basis for more regular use, depending on your needs. If you only need a number for a few days or weeks, you can do that. If you want a number you can keep for weeks or months, you can do that too.
Text verification is used to keep us safe in a number of different situations. It checks that people are who they say they are, and that documents are what they appear to be. We'll explore some actual uses of text verification, and how those sectors are employing it to make their operations more efficient and protect their information.
SMS verification is a popular e-commerce security measure that ensures the validity of transactions and helps protect end users from fraud. When a purchase is being made, or a user logs in to their account, they receive a One-Time Password (OTP) via SMS, and that instant verification can confirm that they are indeed who they say they are. For example, if a customer is trying to check out, they might be asked to enter their mobile phone number. The system then sends them an OTP to their mobile device and they enter that token back into the webpage to confirm their identity as the account owner. What's more, turning on SMS verification can help lift end user confidence in their online shopping security. End users will feel safer knowing that they are being verified, and this can lead to more orders and more loyal shoppers. With SMS verification, merchants can also safeguard themselves from certain kinds of financial fraud and account takeovers. SMS verification is a powerful tool for businesses with the global A2P messaging market worth almost $67 billion in 2022.
Finance and security go hand-in-hand, and text verification is key for keeping your users' accounts and info secure. Banks and other financial institutions use SMS verification to help make sure only approved users can access your accounts. When you log in or make changes to your account, you'll typically receive a one-time password (OTP) to your mobile number on record. This extra step ensures that only you can make changes to your account and reduces the chances that someone could easily steal your identity or commit fraud on your behalf. For example, if you're a bank customer who needs to make certain changes to your account, the bank might trigger an OTP verification process to make sure it's really you making the changes. This not only makes the process more secure but helps the bank comply with federal laws that say banks have to have a strong process for verifying their customers' identities. Additionally, the market for such services is expected to grow by 4.9% CAGR from 2023 to 2030.
Companies like AstraZeneca use automated proofreading and text verification tools to produce highly accurate documents. With advanced text verification software, companies can ensure that critical documents are clear and meet the necessary standards—a crucial capability in industries such as pharma, where information accuracy can impact safety or efficacy. AstraZeneca, for instance, uses automated tools to confirm that their documents adhere to regulatory and brand guidelines, that all data is correct, and that all content is formatted correctly. In so doing, they're able to avoid errors that would have necessitated costly reprints, that might have been misinterpreted, or that could have caused a regulatory issue. Automated text verification can help organizations to streamline their document processes and output higher quality work.
Text verification is also super important in the legal space, where you need to make sure documents are verified to be valid in a court of law. A lot of legal proceedings rely on documents, so it's crucial that every contract signed, every affidavit, and every legal brief is verified for authenticity. This can happen in a number of ways, but basically, there's some kind of text verification to ensure the signatories are who they say they are. For example, if I'm submitting a legal filing, an automated text verification process will make sure that I'm me when I'm submitting the document. Maybe that means they send a one-time password (OTP) to my phone number, and I have to enter the OTP correctly in order to submit my filing. By requiring such strict document verification, the legal institution can feel confident that their processes are airtight and that they're less likely to be fooled or taken advantage of.
In all these different use cases, when you use strong text verification, you get security, you get accuracy, and most importantly, you get trust, which are three things that are super important in a digital-first world.
Text verification is just one way to use technology for increased security and trust with online communication. It's usually SMS-based and used to check that a user is really the person they say they are, usually when it counts--like when they're logging in or transacting. Like all security, there are pros and cons.
One thing I love about work is the money," she said. "But I also love the people."
SMS verification is one of those features that's a big win for security. By asking users to enter a code that we text to their mobile after they enter their username and password, it adds an extra layer of protection against unauthorized logins and account takeovers--something that's more important than ever in an age of increased hacking and data breaches.
Take unauthorized logins. With SMS verification, even if a hacker got a hold of a user's username and password, they'd also need their mobile to fully take over an account. This two-factor--something the user knows (their password) and something the user has (their mobile)--greatly reduces the risk of unauthorized logins.
And SMS verification is easy for users. Most people know how to receive text messages, so it's an easy and intuitive way to add an extra layer of security. As hacks become more complex, these kinds of features are more and more essential to protecting data.
In addition to heightened security, text verification provides increased trust for digital communication. With so much fraud, phishing and unauthorized impersonation occurring online, trust in the veracity of information sent by text is imperative.
Businesses and service providers can help ensure that the communications consumers receive are genuine. For example, if a bank sends a security code or transaction confirmation via text to a customer, that customer can trust the bank that is taking measures to prevent others from accessing their account. This builds trust and allows users to engage more fully and confidently in the digital service; and that leads to customer loyalty.
For many companies, especially small to medium businesses, the only infrastructure you need is to be able to send SMS. You can use third party services like Twilio, who offer APIs to integrate SMS, and you can easily set up SMS verification without having to invest a lot in technology or people. This means that even if you're a small company with limited resources, you can still afford to have an extremely secure app. The other big advantage is how inexpensive it is to implement SMS verification.
All products, no matter how great, have their limitations. One of the limitations of text verification is that it's susceptible to SIM swapping. In a SIM swapping attack, attackers trick a mobile carrier into transferring a victim's phone number to a new SIM card. Once an attacker has a victim's phone number, they can intercept any SMS text message codes, which means they can bypass any security measures that rely on SMS.
There are other methods for intercepting SMS messages as well, through different hacking techniques or malware. Though SMS is still used as a form of user verification, keep these limitations and other attack vectors in mind and always have backup 2FA methods.
What's another downside to text verification? User fatigue. User fatigue is tiring, especially if it happens a lot. If verification occurs frequently and the system keeps asking, users can become tired. It can make users upset or they might not want to use your service at all.
For instance, if your banking app sends an SMS for verification every time you log in, that's a little bit of a con because users don't want to receive an SMS every time they log into their bank (which could be multiple times per day). You'll have to find a balance between security and user experience, and you don't want users to drop off as a result of always asking for verification.
In the digital era, you win some and you lose some. Text verification is good for security, it's comforting, and it's affordable for businesses to implement—but you should be aware of the cons and adjust your implementation accordingly.
In today's digital climate, digital security is top of mind, and best practices for phone number verification are more important than ever. When you implement good phone verification practices, you're not only protecting sensitive information, you're also building trust with your users. Here are a few good ways to do SMS verification and security in general.
If you add multi-factor authentication (MFA) to the mix of SMS verification, it really boosts your security. If you only use SMS for verification, that can be vulnerable to certain kinds of attacks, like SIM swapping or interception attacks to read your messages. By adding other verification methods like biometric information (like fingerprints or facial recognition) or hardware security tokens, you're adding one more layer that unauthorized users would have to pass through.
MFA does this by requiring multiple pieces of evidence to prove it's really you, which makes it really tough for bad actors to get into your accounts. For example, after entering a password, a person might also have to prove they are who they say they are by entering a one-time passcode from their mobile phone. With both of these things, it hugely reduces your risk of being hacked.
Updated contact information is crucial for successful text verification. Users change phone numbers or carriers and forget to update their verification information, resulting in outdated information. When an organization has outdated information, the user may not receive the verification codes they need to gain access, creating barriers and causing frustration.
To combat this, organizations should prompt users to update their information regularly. This can be through scheduled reminders or an automatic prompt that asks the user to verify their information. With the correct information on hand, the organization can provide users with relevant information when they need it, particularly in urgent scenarios where the user needs to authenticate immediately.
Automated verification systems are a highly efficient way to approve things with high accuracy. You can approve and action things quickly, so your employees have less work to do, and users have a faster experience. Especially when you use machine learning algorithms to approve inconsistencies or suspicious activity much more accurately than you could if you were approving it manually.
As an example, let's take an SMS verification code. With automation, you can intelligently deliver the SMS verification code in reaction to user behavior and preferences. A user requests a verification code, you can deliver it right away, and at the same time look at the time of day, frequency of requests, location, etc. That way we can verify users securely, and still allow users to access services in real time.
Effective text verification isn't as useful without the people and processes behind it. User involvement and awareness are key to an effective text verification system. If you teach your users well, they'll be more useful when verification is needed. Users who understand how verification functions and why it helps maintain account security are more likely to complete the steps and let you know if something goes wrong.
Teach your users resources on common threats, how text verification over SMS functions, and why they should keep their account details current. When they have context, they're able to become involved in the verification process, rather than just an observer. That involvement is essential in making MFA, and text verification in general, more effective.
As our world becomes more and more digital, effective text verification becomes more and more critical. By using a blend of MFA, current account details, automated verification, and user awareness, you can improve the effectiveness of your own text verification. And all of that contributes to a stronger security program that enables your users to do more, securely.
Text verification is an important process to ensure you're looking at the right information and that you're being told the truth. With a range of tools like automated systems, SMS verification, and specialized software, companies can verify that they're not giving off the wrong information in industries like healthcare, finance, and law. In this article, we'll explain the importance of text verification for security, trust, and compliance with the law, and how your company can do it including through multi-factor authentication, keeping your contact info up to date, automating verification, and training your staff. After all, an effective text verification process will ensure you're not spreading fake news and help keep your users' personal info secure.
Text verification is the process of ensuring that information is accurate and true, in digital content in this case. It's important for accuracy and especially useful today for fighting misinformation across shared information (like in journalism or academia) so that it's actually true and up to standard. This helps to maintain the credibility of content and avoid real-world consequences of people believing false information.
Text verification is done in a number of ways--cross-referencing the text with trusted databases, and using natural language processing (NLP) tools. Cross-referencing ensures that the text is the same as what is already on file, and NLP can "read" the text structure to look for glaring issues. Working together, they help to speed and improve the reliability of the verification process, so there are fewer errors, and the document is true.
In fields like law and healthcare, it's absolutely critical to verify text with really high accuracy. If you make a mistake in a legal context, people can be sued or wrongfully convicted. If you make a mistake in healthcare, people can die. Financial documents, if you mess that up, businesses can be in for a lot of trouble. So high accuracy verification is very important to protect the people in those fields.
Common technologies for text validation include automated verification systems that use algorithms to validate consistency, secure transaction SMS codes, proofreading software for regulated industries, and temporary phone number services for online verification. Each of these technologies addresses different aspects of text validation and offers increased efficiency, accuracy, and user security.
SMS Verification has its pros and cons. On the one hand, it's more secure for your users. They need a one-time code to log in. You get protection from fraud. And it's cheap! On the other hand, there are some major cons: SMS can be SIM swapped, SMS can be intercepted, and users can get annoyed if they're asked to verify too much. It's all trade-offs!
Companies can improve their SMS verification best practices by implementing multi-factor authentication, keeping user contact information up-to-date, automating as much of the verification process as possible, and educating users on the importance of SMS verification, all of which help keep the system secure while also increasing user engagement and confidence.
User education is the most important element of effective verification, because it increases user engagement and compliance at the point of verification. If you teach your users why verification is important, what to look for, and how to keep their contact information current, then you can build a group of people who "should know better." And when people know better, they do better. With this approach, not only can you have more effective verification systems, you can contribute to a safer online world.
text verification - A close-up of a computer screen displaying text verification tools.
SMS Check