AS digital transactions rise, so do cases of identity fraud, leaving Jamaicans vulnerable to impostors posing as legitimate agents in real estate, finance and employment. New identity-verification company Cleared Identity is targeting that gap, offering biometric-based background checks to help organisations confirm exactly who they are dealing with before sensitive information or money changes hands.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘How come there is no platform out there where a realtor is vetted so that people looking for properties can know for sure that if they go on the platform, their information is safe, and if they need to, let’s say they didn’t get the property, they can revoke access to their information?’ ” founder Desmond Campbell told the Jamaica Observer.

Cleared was conceptualised following a personal experience that exposed how easily identity fraud can occur in everyday transactions. Campbell explained that while searching for a property in 2022 he encountered a scammer posing as a legitimate realtor who requested his ID, TRN and other personal information before later demanding money for a viewing he could not deliver. Although Campbell did not lose any cash, he realised that the scammer now held sensitive information that could be used to commit fraud in his name. Two years later, in 2024, he decided to build a digital system that could prevent similar incidents for others.

Campbell, a trained chemical engineer who also spent more than a decade working as a software engineer across the finance sector, public sector and small businesses, said his professional experience made it clear that identity verification needed a more secure, technology-driven approach. But building an online platform designed to verify identity first and authenticate all supporting documents before information or funds are exchanged came with several early hurdles, particularly because there was no established model in Jamaica to replicate.

“One challenge was that we don’t have precedence for it in this space,” he told the Sunday Finance. “There is no company to copy and say, ‘OK, well, they have some success here [so] let’s try to reimplement some of these without reinventing the wheel.’ We had to invent the wheel.”

While identity and screening platforms exist globally, he explained that none have been developed with the local and regional context that Jamaican businesses require. As a result, the team had to build the product from the ground up and learn how it should work in this market. Because the concept is new, investors had no benchmark to gauge its potential for success, creating early funding challenges for the start-up. A further obstacle emerged once the platform entered the market.

“Our objective is to establish trust. But then some entities would still ask, ‘OK, you’re verifying people and companies [but] who is verifying you?’ ” he shared, describing it as a “catch-22” situation that required strategic brand-building and reputation development.

To get the first version off the ground Campbell used personal savings after leaving his finance job, investing approximately $3 million to build and launch the initial product. The company later secured angel investment to support its first year of operations. Cleared launched with a single prototype, first on a website and now expanded into a mobile app. But product development remains continuous. The platform supports employers, landlords, lenders and even individuals in the dating space at the point where background checks are required. Once a candidate or applicant is shortlisted, the individual’s name and contact information are submitted through the system. The platform then invites that person to complete the identity and document verification process themselves.

“We take privacy very seriously. People who use the mobile app and submit their IDs or complete verifications can be confident that their information is highly secured and protected. We do not share it with any unauthorised entity,” Campbell reassured.

Transparency and consent are central to the platform’s design; as such, no background check is performed without the explicit approval of the individual involved, in keeping with evolving data privacy standards. Users also control who sees their verified data. After completing ID verification they choose which organisation receives access — and only vetted, legitimate institutions are allowed on the platform. It is also designed to limit the possibility of falsified information throughout the verification process. Identity fraud is addressed first using biometric checks and official document validation, preventing users from submitting altered IDs. Address verification follows, supported by document review and GPS confirmation to ensure the location provided is accurate. For references, Cleared separates personal from character endorsements. While personal references simply provide a point of contact, character references undergo what Campbell describes as “investigative strategies” to corroborate the credibility of the information shared. Employment history verification is handled independently, with Cleared directly contacting employers to confirm details. He acknowledged that there is a small risk of collusion between an applicant and someone inside a company but said accuracy is typically high. Financial claims, such as income, are reviewed using bank statements and fraud detection technology, which flag any document manipulation. Criminal records, he added, are sourced through official channels and therefore cannot be fabricated. The main industry currently utilising Cleared is the BPO sector, primarily during the recruitment process. With a team of seven, Cleared’s long-term goal is to be recognised as the standard verification platform across Jamaica’s public and private sectors, eliminating the need for officers to manually call institutions or send emails to confirm documents, but he admits to achieve this vision will require deeper integration with national systems.

“We have a lot of work to do to get to that point — meaning even more integrations into other trusted data sources so we can verify documents — but that is ultimately where I want it to be,” he told Sunday Finance.

Cleared also plans to expand beyond Jamaica into markets with similar fraud risks and economic environments.

“There is one in Africa that we’re actively pursuing right now, Liberia, but then there are two in particular in the Caribbean: Guyana and Belize. And El Salvador is one that we’re exploring as well. For now, those are just like the top three countries that we want to be in over the next few years,” said Campbell.

Verify before you trust. Get Cleared..

Cleared Identity provides biometric-based identity verification and background checks to ensure you always know exactly with whom who you’re dealing.

Founder, Cleared Identity, Desmond Campbell.

CAMPBELL…we take privacy very seriously. People who use the mobile app and submit their IDs or complete verifications can be confident that their information is highly secured and protected. We do not share it with any unauthorised entity.