Daon® company has been selected by the British Council to provide identity verification services across its global testing and digital education portfolio.
The engagement spans one of the world’s most widely administered testing programs, accepted by governments in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand and recognized by more than 12,500 organisations worldwide, including major immigration authorities, employers, and higher education institutions.
The deployment will see Daon’s TrustX platform used to verify the identities of test takers at multiple points throughout the testing journey, supporting a more secure and consistent approach to identity assurance.
The British Council
The British Council, a UK public body founded in 1934 and governed by Royal Charter, works with individuals in over 200 countries and territories and maintains a presence in more than 100 countries.
In 2024-25 alone, it reached 599 million people through its cultural relations and educational programs.
As demand for secure, remote, and high-integrity testing grows, the British Council needed a partner capable of delivering identity verification that extends beyond initial enrolment to cover the full lifecycle of the user journey. The ability to confidently verify identity is critical to maintaining trust in results that are used to make life-changing decisions across borders.
Anthony Nicols, Director of Product at the British Council, commented:
“Identity is the cornerstone for high stakes exams, and in Daon we’ve found a partner that helps us embed trust throughout the entire testing journey. This strengthens the integrity of our results while delivering a more secure and consistent experience for test takers globally.”
Under the agreement, Daon will deploy its xProof identity verification capabilities on the TrustX platform to support identity verification during registration, at test centres, and at key moments throughout the testing process, including face-match re-verification following breaks and during re-tests. The solution combines document verification, facial comparison, liveness detection, and chip reading, supported by global 24/7 services, fraud detection, and manual review fallback where required.
Tom Grissen, CEO of Daon, has said:
“Organizations like the British Council operate at a scale where identity is more than just a security function. It’s what underlines trust in the institution and the services it provides. This deployment reflects something we’re seeing across multiple sectors, where identity verification is becoming an ongoing, integrated part of the user journey rather than a single, static checkpoint. Platforms like TrustX are designed to enable organizations to orchestrate identity across channels, use cases, and geographies without adding friction for users.”
The initial rollout will support millions of identity verification and facial authentication transactions over a multi-year term, with plans to extend the platform to additional British Council services, including English Online.
