How to verify a remote candidate's identity before you submit

To verify a remote candidate's identity, check that the same person shows up at every step. Before the interview, the name, phone, email and work history on the resume should match the candidate's professional profiles and the person who answers your calls. During a video interview, the face on camera should match a government ID and hold up to a few live checks. Afterward, references should be real people you reached through their employer, and the person at the client interview should be the person you screened. When something doesn't match, ask about it, re-verify, and have a second person look before anyone decides.

For an agency, the client is relying on your screen to have settled this. In Checkr's September 2025 survey of 3,000 US managers, 31% said they had interviewed a candidate "who was later revealed to be using a fake identity," and 35% said someone other than the listed applicant had taken part in a virtual interview. The FBI's July 2025 advisory describes the version that hurts an agency most: "Sometimes an individual is employed to pass the initial interview, but the on-the-job work is completed by a different individual."

What should you check before the interview?

Many identity problems show up on paper first, if you compare the pieces side by side. Before you schedule:

• The name matches across the resume, the application, the email address (where it contains a name) and LinkedIn.
• Employers, titles and dates on the resume match LinkedIn. Small differences are normal. Different employers are not.
• The phone number, email and resume text aren't already in your ATS under another name. The FBI's January 2025 advisory recommends you "cross-check HR systems for other applicants with the same resume content and/or contact information," and says North Korean IT workers have reused phone numbers, particularly voice-over-IP numbers, across resumes for different applicants.
• Photos and contact details line up with social media profiles, portfolio sites and payment platforms, a cross-check the FBI's July 2025 advisory recommends.
• The LinkedIn profile has some history behind it, such as connections at the employers it lists. A new profile carrying a long career is worth a question.
• Your first contact is a phone call to the number on the resume, so you know that number reaches the candidate.

None of these proves fraud. People change names, use nicknames, keep thin profiles and get new phone numbers. You're looking for several mismatches together, or one the candidate can't explain.

What should you check during a video interview?

If your first screen is an AI voice screen, run these on your own follow-up video call. Tell every candidate at the start that you run a short identity check with everyone, so nobody feels singled out.

Most of the checks come straight from the FBI's July 2025 advisory:

1. Ask for the camera on with the background visible. The FBI recommends you "mandate video and request that their backgrounds be unobscured."
2. Ask the candidate to wave a hand slowly in front of their face. The FBI suggests this because it "may prompt a malfunction in AI generated video." A clean wave proves nothing. A glitch is a reason to look closer.
3. Ask them to "point the camera out a window," and ask about their claimed current location and the location on their ID, as the advisory describes.
4. Ask them to turn their head to each side, then look down at the desk and back up.
5. Watch the lips and the audio together. The FBI's 2022 advisory describes interviews where "the actions and lip movement of the person seen interviewed on-camera do not completely coordinate with the audio of the person speaking."
6. Ask "soft" questions about their location or education, which the FBI's January 2025 advisory recommends, and compare the answers with the resume and the ID.
7. With notice to the candidate, "capture images for comparison with future meetings," as the July 2025 advisory puts it.

Bad lighting, an old laptop, a slow connection or a facial difference can produce the same glitches as altered video, so one odd moment means little. An accent, a name, or a degree from outside the United States is never an identity signal. The EEOC defines national origin discrimination to include treating someone unfavorably because of their accent or because they are from a particular country. For more on face-swapped video, see deepfake job candidates.

When should you check a government ID?

Check ID for every candidate in roles where an impostor would do real damage: remote roles, anything with access to client systems, customer data or money, and contract IT work, which the FBI calls "a common way that North Korean IT workers procure employment." Checking everyone in a role type is fairer, and easier to explain, than checking only the candidates who make you uneasy. It's also common: in Checkr's survey, government-issued ID checks were the most-used fraud measure, "used by 58% of respondents."

On a live call:

• Ask the candidate to hold the ID next to their face, then closer to the camera so you can read it.
• Compare the photo with the person on camera and with the photos on their profiles.
• Compare the name with the resume, and the address with where they say they live and work.
• Write down what you checked and when. Keep a copy of the ID only if your process needs one, and check the rules where your candidates live before you store ID images.

Know the limits. A real ID can belong to someone else: the FBI's 2022 advisory says pre-employment background checks found that personal information "given by some of the applicants belonged to another individual." That's why comparing the face to the document matters as much as the document. A well-made fake can also pass a look through a webcam. And confirming who someone is tells you nothing about whether they're eligible to work in the role. That's a separate step in onboarding.

How do you run reference checks that confirm identity?

A reference the candidate controls confirms nothing. The FBI's July 2025 advisory recommends you "verify prior employment and higher education history directly with businesses and educational institutions." Apply the same rule to references: reach people through the employer, not through the candidate. In Checkr's survey, 46% of managers said they use reference verifications.

• Find the employer's main number on its own website, call it, and ask for the reference by name.
• Prefer an email address at the employer's domain. A personal address is normal for someone who has since left, but then confirm their old role another way.
• Check that the reference's own profile shows them at that employer, at the same time as the candidate.
• Ask questions that test the resume: "What did [candidate] work on between [dates]? Who else was on that team?"
• Compare what the reference describes with what the candidate told you about the same project.
• Confirm degrees and certifications with the school or issuer when the role requires them.

Be wary when every reference can be reached only on a mobile number, works at a company you can't find, or describes a job you didn't hear about on the screen.

What should you check after the interview?

The FBI's July 2025 advisory has several checks for the weeks between the offer and the start of work:

• Compare the person at the client interview, and on the first day, with the images you captured at the screen.
• Ship laptops and documents only to the address on the ID. If the candidate asks for another address, the FBI says to "require additional documentation to verify the address."
• Hold off on system access. The advisory says "do not grant access to any systems until the background check is completed."
• Watch for bank details that change soon after the start. The advisory says to "monitor employees who change their bank accounts often."

If you place remote IT contractors, our North Korean IT worker checklist covers these steps in more detail.

What should you do when something doesn't match?

1. Stay neutral on the call. Write down what you saw and when.
2. Ask the candidate about it plainly. Many mismatches have ordinary explanations.
3. Re-verify on a short live video call: camera on, ID next to the face, a few questions about their own work history.
4. Have a second person review the evidence before anyone decides.
5. If the client is already involved, tell them what you found and what you checked.
6. If it fits the remote IT worker pattern, report it to the FBI at ic3.gov, as its advisories ask.

Common mismatches and what to ask for:

For the full list of stand-in warning signs, see how to spot a proxy interview.

Where do tools help, and where don't they?

Tools help with three parts of this: tying the interview to an ID document and a live face, adding a camera angle that's harder to fake at the same time, and keeping a timestamped record you can compare against later. They don't cover the rest: no tool catches every fake ID, none checks your references, and every alert still needs a person to look at it.

Simplehire runs AI voice screening interviews that recruiters send before submitting a candidate to a client. The candidate's webcam shows their face on the main interview screen, and you can add identity checks.

On Enterprise, you can set the ID check to Off, Optional or Required. When it's required, the candidate must pass a government ID check and a live face match before the interview begins. It won't catch every fake ID, and it doesn't verify work authorization or visa status.

You can also require a paired second device through second-device proctoring. The candidate scans a code with their own phone, with nothing to install and no account, and the phone gives a side-camera view of the candidate, their laptop and the desk around them. Lighting, framing and camera angle are checked before the interview starts. A helper sitting just outside the webcam's view is harder to hide from a second angle.

Every tier runs in enforced full-screen mode and records tab switches, focus loss and copy and paste attempts. On supported Windows and Mac interviews, desktop proctoring has candidates close risky applications such as remote-desktop tools before the interview starts. Every event is timestamped, interview audio is recorded, and alerts come with screenshots and a severity from Low to Critical concern.

Candidates are told before monitoring begins. We don't analyze the video to judge whether it's synthetic, and Simplehire doesn't detect deepfakes. A person reviews every finding, and the recruiter decides who gets submitted.

Screens cost $2 (Basic), $3 (Adaptive) or $5 (Advanced), and every account gets 25 free Basic screens a month with no credit card. See the proctoring details or start free.