2025 Digital
Identity Fraud in
Africa Report
Generative AI and deepfakes drive new fraud tactics, posing significant challenges for African businesses. This report examines how vulnerabilities are exploited and provides clear, actionable strategies to help leaders protect trust, revenue, and operational stability in 2025.
The future of fraud prevention lies in adaptability. AI provides fraudsters with new tools of attack, but it also gives security practitioners the ability to leverage global intelligence to stop zero-day attacks and to automate things that previously required manual intervention and decisioning.
The Modern Fraudster
Fraud today isn’t what it used to be—it’s smarter, faster, and harder to catch. Young, tech-savvy fraudsters are using cutting-edge tools to exploit weaknesses at scale.
Young and Tech-Savvy: Often under 35, fast to adapt
Android Preferred: Accessible and customisable for fraud
AI-Driven: Uses generative AI and deepfakes to deceive
Targets Finance: Focused on banks, fintech, and payments
Post-Onboarding Attacks: Exploits authentication vulnerabilities
Sophisticated Tactics: Masters document and identity fraud
Identity Farming Fuels Money Laundering
Identity farming is driving advanced money laundering schemes across Africa. Fraudsters collect personal data—often from vulnerable individuals in unbanked or low-literacy regions—through phishing, data breaches, or purchases. They use this data to create fraudulent accounts for laundering activities.
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Generative AI: Redefining Fraud in Africa
Fraudsters exploit generative AI to outsmart verification systems, crafting hyper-realistic fake documents, voices, and images. Over the past year, deepfakes and AI-driven selfie anomalies have surged, fueling a new wave of biometric fraud.
AI-powered selfie anomalies accounted for 34% of emerging biometric fraud cases
Deepfake incidents surged sevenfold
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Biometric Fraud Hits All-Time High
Biometric fraud spiked to a quarterly average of 16% in 2024, its highest in three years, fuelled by increasingly sophisticated AI-driven attacks.
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New Methods of Biometric Fraud
As fraud tactics evolve, criminals find new ways to trick biometric systems. Data from blocked spoofing attempts reveals new techniques.
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New Document Spoofing Techniques
We also saw more sophisticated document fraud techniques employed in 2024.
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How Did Fraudsters Behave in 2024?
Fraud is Higher
After Onboarding
In the last year, fraud attempts during user authentication were four times higher than at registration, highlighting the acute threat of account takeover and not just fraudulent account creation.
Regional Analysis
In 2024, East Africa had the highest rejection rate (27%) due to the reliance on outdated and poor-quality identity documents and led in document fraud cases. West Africa, rising from 12% in 2023 to 22%, reported the most biometric fraud, while Central Africa matched West Africa’s rejection rate at 22%.
- East Africa
- 0%
- Central Africa
- 0%
- West Africa
- 0%
- Southern Africa
- 0%
Choice of ID Type
In Africa in 2024, fraud rates peaked, with National IDs at 27%. Driver's Licenses followed at 24%, Passports 20%, while Work Permits and Alien Cards reached 19%. Voter IDs maintained the lowest rate at 14%.
Key Time Trends
Fraud rates peaked between 7 PM and 3 AM across all regions, with attempts highest at 11 PM GMT.
11 PM GMT
Identity fraud during referral and bonus campaigns spiked to over 2x the usual levels.
2X
Fraud rates doubled among lending and microfinance companies in October.
100%
By Device
More onboarding attempts were blocked due to fraud on Android devices compared to iOS.
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