ZOREAL Identify

Alternatives to ID.me

ID.me describes itself as a digital identity wallet where "Consumers can verify their identity with ID.me once and seamlessly sign-in across websites", verified to NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 and AAL2 with a government ID and a selfie, and presented to relying parties through OpenID Connect or SAML. ZOREAL Identify is a "Continue with ZOREAL" button on standard OpenID Connect, backed by the ZOREAL ID credential, that returns a pairwise pseudonymous identifier for a human verified against a government document chip, with the assurance of each login stated in the token. This page sets the two side by side: what each verifies and how, what each returns to the relying party, how each handles biometric data, and what each costs.

Information last reviewed 10 September 2026. Compared: the ID.me Wallet login and the Identity Gateway integration that returns a verified identity, with ZOREAL Identify. ID.me’s group verification for discounts, ID.me Rx, and its state benefits and healthcare credentialing partnerships are out of scope.

See ZOREAL Identify

35 other alternatives

Where ZOREAL Identify and ID.me differ

The guarantee
ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine. ZOREAL is the only solution in the world today that can give that guarantee.
What is read from the document
ID.me’s IAL2 proofing "validates and verifies one piece of strong evidence such as a driver’s license, passport, or passport card, and two pieces of fair identity evidence" with a selfie, remotely, by supervised video or in person, and accepts documents without a chip. ZOREAL reads the document’s chip over NFC and re-runs Passive Authentication against the ICAO master list on its own side, so the issuing country’s signature over the data is checked and every attribute comes from the server’s own parse, then face-matches a liveness capture 1:1 to the chip portrait; a document without a chip cannot enrol.
Assurance stated per login
ID.me’s relying party requests a policy handle (mfa, fortified_identity, a community handle) and receives the identity’s IAL2 status and AAL2 authentication; a per-login liveness claim in the token is not stated in the materials we reviewed. ZOREAL’s ID token states per login how the human was authenticated, in acr and amr: a fresh liveness capture face-matched to the enrolled document, a registered hardware-key approval, or a remembered session, and a relying party that sets a live floor is denied rather than downgraded when it cannot be met.
What the relying party receives
ID.me’s OpenID Connect UserInfo returns uuid, fname, lname, email, birth_date and zip, omitting any attribute that is unavailable, and its pages do not state whether uuid differs per relying party. ZOREAL’s ID token carries no personal data: a pairwise pseudonym per sector plus the assurance block, with name, birthdate, document fields and email served only from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain, and age returned as yes-or-no thresholds.

Side by side

Comparison of ZOREAL Identify and ID.me, based on public materials reviewed on 10 September 2026.

Attribute	ZOREAL Identify	ID.me
How the identity is bound	Enrolment, in the ZOREAL ID app: the document is photographed, its machine-readable zone read and its chip read over NFC. The server re-runs Passive Authentication against its own trust store built from the ICAO Public Key Directory, so the issuing country’s signature over the data is checked on ZOREAL’s side, and the chip proves possession of its private key. A liveness capture with presentation-attack detection is face-matched 1:1 against the chip portrait. The device key is generated in the phone’s hardware, its attestation is verified at registration, and every evidence call carries an app-integrity assertion. Each verified document yields two holder certificates over that key under ZOREAL’s two roots (ECDSA P-384 and ML-DSA-87), one pseudonymous and one carrying the legal name, valid until the document expires. Login: ZOREAL is the OpenID Provider. The holder approves on their phone, a stock OIDC library validates the ID token against ZOREAL’s JWKS, the relying party sets the assurance per request with acr_values, max_age and prompt, and a request that cannot meet its floor is denied, never downgraded. The subject is pairwise per sector, so one ZOREAL ID is reused at every service without being linkable across them; consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope.	A person verifies once with ID.me (government ID plus selfie, through remote self-service, supervised video chat, in person or an expedited preverified flow) and the wallet then presents that identity, or a community affiliation, to any relying party through OpenID Connect or SAML. IAL2 "validates and verifies one piece of strong evidence such as a driver’s license, passport, or passport card, and two pieces of fair identity evidence". Biometrics are used for identity proofing, to "prevent the creation of multiple wallets" and for fraud detection (NIST IAL2 guide; biometric policy).
What the token proves	Two halves. Proof that a real human is there: the ID token asserts this is one human (not one account, not one device), with the strength of that claim in a uniqueness field; that a government document chip was read and its authenticity verified, at the month given; and how this session was authenticated, in acr and amr, whether a live human was captured for this login, a registered device key was used, or a session was reused. And, when the relying party requests it and the person consents on the phone, the verified identity: name, birthdate and document details read from the chip, served from userinfo to a confidential client with a verified domain. The person sees every requested claim before approving, and the relying party receives only the scopes it was granted. It is not KYC, not a legal signature, not proof that the person consented freely, and not proof that the person is the one operating the browser.	That the person verified to NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 and is authenticating at AAL2, with the attributes or community affiliation the requested policy handle returns: uuid, fname, lname, email, birth_date and zip, and "if an attribute is not available, it is omitted from the UserInfo JSON response" (OpenID Connect integration guide; configuration standards).
Guarantee	ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine.	NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 identity proofing and AAL2 authentication; ID.me states it is "approved as a NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 / AAL2 credential service provider by the Kantara Initiative", and the Kantara Trust Status List lists "Identity Gateway", "NIST 800-63 rev.3", "IAL2; AAL2" (April 2026 release; Kantara list). A numeric or contractual uniqueness guarantee per person is not stated in the public materials we reviewed.
Who issues the credential	ZOREAL is the issuer of the ID card: a reusable identity credential that logs in to other websites, with the person controlling the scopes each login discloses.	ID.me issues the wallet credential after IAL2 proofing and presents it through the Identity Gateway to relying parties over OpenID Connect or SAML; the wallet "Provides a secure login that can store multiple ID cards including Legal ID, Employee ID, Veteran ID, & more" (ID.me business homepage).
Attributes and identifier	The ID token carries no personal data, ever: a pairwise pseudonym per sector plus the assurance block. Name, birthdate, document fields and email are served only from userinfo, against a ten-minute single-audience access token with no refresh token, and only to a confidential client with a verified domain; a relying party that needs the data again asks the person again. Age is returned as registered yes-or-no thresholds, never an age or a birth year. The document portrait is a separately gated tier and is biometric data under GDPR Article 9 for the relying party that requests it. Consent is remembered per sector and re-prompted on any new scope or claim, and the consent screen shows only what ZOREAL verified about the relying party. ZOREAL, as the OpenID Provider, sees every login: which holder, which relying party, when. One ZOREAL ID serves every service: a returning person at a consented sector approves on their phone without a new capture, or silently when the relying party asks for it; the identifier is stable within the relying party’s registered sector and different at unrelated sectors, so the credential is reused without being linkable across services	uuid, fname, lname, email, birth_date and zip from UserInfo, plus community flags such as military, student, teacher, responder, government and nurse, depending on the policy handle; the integration guide tells integrators to store uuid as the user key, and whether the same uuid is presented to every relying party or is pairwise is not stated in the public materials we reviewed (OpenID Connect integration guide; configuration standards).
Biometric data retention	ZOREAL’s Biometric Data Privacy Notice (zoreal.com/privacy/biometric, section 6) states that raw identity-document evidence is destroyed upon completion of verification, that liveness video and images are destroyed promptly after the check they relate to, and that the facial image and template kept as the person’s reference are retained for the life of their ZOREAL ID and destroyed within thirty days of its termination. The document portrait is a separately gated tier and is biometric data under GDPR Article 9 for the relying party that requests it.	"ID.me may retain your biometric information for up to thirty-six months."; "Certain customers may require this information to be purged within twenty-four (24) hours following a successful verification"; the biometric policy (version 3.3.0, 10 April 2026) states biometric information is retained while the wallet remains active and deleted no later than one year after wallet closure. "ID.me will not sell, rent, or trade your Personal Information." (help centre; biometric policy; privacy policy).
Cost to enrol	Enrolment in the ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity: document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment, re-enrollment, recovery and revocation. Every Tier A login is free without limit on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality, with 1 client configuration on Free. Answering an identity request is always free for the person.	No consumer fee is stated on the pages we reviewed; the help centre describes the ID.me Authenticator app as free. For relying parties: no published price list as of September 2026; "Complete this form to get your organization on the path" (Work with ID.me contact page).
Cost per sign-in	Enrolment is free: "The ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity, from enrollment to recovery", and "Document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment" is "Always free" on Free and Premium. Every Tier A login is free, without limit, on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality (openid, zoreal.age and zoreal.nationality, available to every registered client). Tier A logins are never charged. A charge applies only to a qualified Tier B login, where the relying party requests identity disclosure (the profile scopes, name, birthdate and document details, and email, which require a verified domain, a confidential client and client authentication), on Premium: "Identify · Identity disclosure", "Name, birth date and document details", "One charge for name, birth date or document details, even when several are returned"; "Identify · Fresh-liveness login", "Coming soon"; "Content and contract signing authorization", "Coming soon". Client configurations per website or app: 1 on Free, 10 on Premium; private-key JWT and mTLS client authentication on Premium. Premium is priced per user, monthly or yearly, with two months free on yearly billing; every organization member is a paid Premium seat; metered usage is charged separately. Enterprise: contact us. Answering an identity request is always free for the person. Current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing. ZOREAL Identify is the cheapest way to do KYC in the market: free to enrol, free to check, paid only for the higher disclosure tiers.	No published price list as of September 2026; a price per verification or per login for relying parties is not stated in the public materials we reviewed. Contact route: the Work with ID.me form at network.id.me/contact.
Certifications and reach	Organization-level, as zoreal.com lists them for Bynn Intelligence, Inc.: SOC 2 (attestation), PCI DSS (SAQ A), GDPR (data protection), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (information security certification) and CSA STAR Level One (cloud security self-assessment). No Identify-specific certification or scheme recognition is stated on zoreal.com as of September 2026. ZOREAL asserts no NIST IAL or AAL level and no Kantara approval, and states no count of enrolled holders or relying parties.	Kantara approval at NIST 800-63-3 IAL2/AAL2; GSA FICAM accreditation; SOC 2 Type 1 for the Identity Gateway; hosting on FedRAMP-authorized AWS in ISO 27001/27002 certified data centres, statements that describe the hosting rather than an ID.me authorisation (security page). "nearly 90 million verified to federal AAL2/IAL2 standards" within "more than 165 million users"; "22 federal agencies, 50 state government agencies, and more than 85 healthcare organizations"; "More than 600 consumer brands use ID.me" (22 April 2026 release).

Third-party details on this page reflect what each provider publicly stated on the review date shown above and may have changed since. Where a provider does not state something publicly, this page says so rather than assuming. Statements about what ID.me offers reflect its public materials on the review date; absence of a feature from those materials does not mean it is unavailable. ZOREAL's current prices are on the ZOREAL price list.

Where ZOREAL Identify and ID.me agree

Both are reusable verified identities: a person verifies once, holds the credential in an app, and signs in at many relying parties without verifying again. Both integrate on standards, OpenID Connect with PKCE on each side (ID.me adds SAML 2.0), so a relying party validates a signed token with a stock library. Both omit an attribute that is unavailable rather than returning a null, and both put a consent step between the relying party’s request and the disclosure.

Both bind the person with biometrics and use them to resist duplicate enrolment: ID.me states biometrics are used to "prevent the creation of multiple wallets", and ZOREAL face-matches the liveness capture to the chip portrait and states the strength of the uniqueness claim in the token. Both publish a retention statement for biometric data: ID.me up to 36 months, or 24 hours for certain customers, and deletion within a year of wallet closure; ZOREAL in its Biometric Data Privacy Notice, which destroys liveness images promptly after the check and the reference facial image within thirty days of the ZOREAL ID’s termination. Neither asserts a legal signature at login.

What differs is the evidence model and what the token carries. ID.me accepts driver’s licences and other non-chip documents and offers supervised video and in-person proofing, so it can verify people ZOREAL cannot enrol; ZOREAL requires a chip document read by the phone and verified against the issuing country’s certificates. ID.me returns name, email, birth date and zip as its core attributes to a Kantara-approved IAL2/AAL2 standard; ZOREAL returns a pairwise pseudonym with the assurance of the login, and attributes only on consent, and claims no NIST level.

ZOREAL Identify may fit you if

You want the assurance of each login stated in the token (a fresh liveness capture, a hardware-key approval, or a remembered session) rather than a one-time proofing status
You want the document’s chip verified against the issuing country’s certificates, with the attributes read from that chip
You want a pairwise identifier per sector and no personal data in the ID token, with attributes released only on request and consent
You want the pricing structure published: Tier A logins free and unlimited, with a charge only on a Tier B login where identity disclosure is requested

ID.me may fit you if

You are a US federal, state or healthcare relying party that needs a Kantara-approved NIST 800-63-3 IAL2/AAL2 credential service provider
Your users may not hold a chip passport or eID and need driver’s-licence, supervised video or in-person proofing
You need community affiliation checks (military, student, teacher, responder and others) for eligibility
You want a wallet your users may already hold: nearly 90 million identities verified to IAL2/AAL2, per ID.me in April 2026

Other alternatives to ID.me

35 more vendors compared under ZOREAL Identify, from their own public materials.

All 36 Identify comparisons

Common questions

ID.me proves that a person verified once to NIST 800-63-3 IAL2, with one piece of strong evidence, two pieces of fair evidence and a selfie, remotely, by video or in person, and is authenticating at AAL2; it returns identity attributes or a community affiliation through OpenID Connect or SAML. ZOREAL Identify proves that one human was verified against a government document chip, with the month of that verification and, per login, how the session was authenticated: a fresh liveness capture matched to the enrolled document, a registered hardware-key approval, or a remembered session. ZOREAL asserts no NIST level and no Kantara approval.

ID.me publishes no price list for relying parties as of September 2026; organisations use the Work with ID.me contact form, and no consumer fee is stated on the pages we reviewed. ZOREAL Identify: Free to enrol, free Tier A logins; only Tier B logins charged. Enrolment in the ZOREAL ID app is always free for the person holding the identity: document scan, chip read and liveness enrollment, re-enrollment, recovery and revocation. Every Tier A login is free without limit on every plan: the pairwise identifier, the assurance block, age-threshold answers and nationality, with 1 client configuration on Free. Answering an identity request is always free for the person. A charge applies only to a qualified Tier B login where the relying party requests identity disclosure, on Premium; current prices are on the ZOREAL price list at zoreal.com/pricing.

ZOREAL guarantees that the person is real, is not an AI, exists, and is linked to a government-issued ID. One hundred percent, not ninety-nine point nine. ZOREAL is the only solution in the world today that can give that guarantee. ID.me states it is approved as a NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 / AAL2 credential service provider by the Kantara Initiative, and its IAL2 evidence model accepts documents without a chip; ZOREAL’s guarantee rests on the chip read, the face match, the liveness capture and the hardware key described on this page, and ZOREAL holds no NIST or Kantara status.

No. ZOREAL’s product facts state that Identify "is not KYC, not a legal signature, not proof that the person consented freely". ZOREAL’s positioning statement reads: ZOREAL Identify is the cheapest way to do KYC in the market: free to enrol, free to check, paid only for the higher disclosure tiers. Both sentences appear on this page as ZOREAL publishes them. What a relying party receives is a pseudonymous identifier for a verified human, the assurance of the login, and, only on request and with the person’s consent, verified identity attributes from userinfo.

ID.me states it may retain biometric information for up to thirty-six months, that certain customers require it to be purged within twenty-four hours of a successful verification, that biometric information is deleted no later than one year after wallet closure, and that selfie deletion on request can take up to seven days. ZOREAL’s Biometric Data Privacy Notice states that raw identity-document evidence is destroyed upon completion of verification, that liveness video and images are destroyed promptly after the check, and that the reference facial image and template are retained for the life of the ZOREAL ID and destroyed within thirty days of its termination; the document portrait is a separately gated tier that is biometric data under GDPR Article 9 for the relying party that requests it. Confirm retention terms in each provider’s contract.

How we compared

This comparison is based on publicly available information from ID.me’s official website, documentation, pricing and published materials, and on ZOREAL’s own published product pages and pricing, as reviewed on 10 September 2026. Features, pricing and availability may change at any time. Verify current details directly with each provider before deciding.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. Which electronic signature method satisfies which law, what level of identity assurance a regulation requires, and whether a content signature or provenance mark meets a given standard all depend on the jurisdiction and the regulator’s guidance. ZOREAL Sign asserts no legal effect for the signatures it records. Confirm your obligations with qualified counsel before choosing a method.

Sources

ID.me, press release with company boilerplate (22 April 2026): verify once, users, agencies, Kantara Read 2026-09-10
ID.me, business homepage: four components, wallet description Read 2026-09-10
ID.me, Security, privacy and compliance: FICAM, SOC 2 Type 1, hosting Read 2026-09-10
ID.me, Work with ID.me contact page Read 2026-09-10
ID.me, Privacy Policy: no sale of data, retention (read through a rendering proxy) Read 2026-09-10
ID.me, Biometric consent and policy, version 3.3.0 (read through a rendering proxy) Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Help Center, Understanding and managing your Biometric Information Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Help Center, Delete selfies and biometric information Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Help Center, search for "free" (Authenticator app) Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Developer, OpenID Connect integration: endpoints, attributes Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Developer, OIDC overview: PKCE, token lifetime Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Developer, Standard scope and AuthN context values: policy handles Read 2026-09-10
ID.me Developer, NIST IAL2: evidence and verification modes Read 2026-09-10
Kantara Initiative, Trust Status List: ID.me Identity Gateway entry (read through a rendering proxy) Read 2026-09-10
ZOREAL pricing (our own published claims) Read 2026-09-11
ZOREAL Identify product page Read 2026-09-11
ZOREAL Biometric Data Privacy Notice (our own published notice), section 6, retention and destruction Read 2026-09-11

ZOREAL is operated by Bynn Intelligence, Inc. and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by ID.me. Third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the products being compared.

See ZOREAL Identify for yourself.

A product walkthrough, pricing or volume terms, with the ZOREAL team.