A cybersecurity firm in Edinburgh hired a penetration tester in 2024. The entire process was remote: application, three-round interview over video call, technical assessment completed at home, and a virtual onboarding session on the first day. The new hire received a company laptop by courier, logged into the corporate VPN from their home office, and began work on client systems.
Six weeks later, inconsistencies in the employee's behaviour raised concerns. Their technical skills did not match the interview performance. They were evasive about their background. An internal investigation revealed that the person who had been working for six weeks was not the person who had interviewed. Someone else had attended the video calls — potentially using deepfake technology — and the actual worker had assumed the identity after the offer was made.
The firm had conducted a right-to-work check via video call during onboarding. The employee held up a passport to the camera. The HR coordinator compared the photograph to the face on screen. It appeared to match. The check was recorded as complete.
The passport was genuine. It belonged to the person who interviewed. It did not belong to the person who started work.
This is the verification gap that remote hiring has created. And it is wider than most employers realise.
How remote work changed the verification landscape
Before 2020, the majority of UK hiring involved at least one physical interaction. Candidates attended in-person interviews. They presented original documents on their first day. A real person, in the same room, compared the photograph on the passport to the face of the person sitting across the desk. The physical presence created a natural verification gate that, while imperfect, was difficult to circumvent entirely.
The COVID-19 pandemic removed that gate. Between March 2020 and September 2022, the Home Office introduced adjusted right-to-work checks that permitted employers to verify documents remotely: the candidate could show documents via video call, and the employer could accept scanned copies rather than original documents.
This adjustment was necessary — businesses needed to continue hiring while offices were closed. But it also normalised a verification process with significantly reduced integrity. A scanned document is easier to forge than a physical one. A face on a video call is easier to manipulate than a face across a desk. The convenience of remote verification came at the cost of assurance.
What replaced adjusted checks
The adjusted checks ended on 30 September 2022. They were not extended or made permanent. In their place, the Home Office introduced a dual-track verification system:
Track 1: Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) — for British and Irish citizens only
British and Irish passport holders can be verified through a certified Identity Service Provider (IDSP). IDSPs use technology to verify the authenticity of the passport (chip reading, security feature analysis) and match the holder's face to the document photograph (biometric comparison). This can be done entirely remotely, with no physical meeting required.
The IDSP route provides a strong level of assurance for the documents it covers. However, it is available only for British and Irish passport holders. It does not cover visa holders, BRP holders, or anyone whose right to work is established through the Home Office online checking service.
Track 2: Manual verification — for everyone else
For all other workers — Skilled Worker visa holders, Graduate visa holders, those with pre-settled or settled status verified via share code, and anyone else not eligible for the IDSP route — the standard manual check applies. This means:
- The employer must see original documents or verify via the Home Office online checking service
- The check must be conducted in the presence of the holder
- "In the presence of" means physically present — not via video call (the adjusted check concession ended)
This creates a practical problem for fully remote employers. If you hire someone who works entirely from home in a different city, and their right to work must be verified in person, someone needs to arrange a physical meeting. For distributed teams, remote-first companies, and businesses hiring across the UK, this is an operational burden that many have not fully grasped.
Some employers have continued conducting checks via video call, unaware that the adjusted check period ended. These checks do not establish a statutory excuse. In the event of an enforcement visit, the employer is as exposed as if no check had been conducted at all.
The deepfake dimension
Remote hiring does not just create a document verification gap. It creates an identity verification gap. The question is not only "is this document genuine?" but "is this the same person I interviewed?"
The rise of deepfake technology in recruitment has made this question urgent. Real-time face-swapping software, available for minimal cost, can convincingly alter a person's appearance during a live video call. Voice cloning technology can replicate a person's voice from a short sample. Combined, these tools enable a scenario where Person A interviews for the job, and Person B starts work — using Person A's credentials, references, and verified identity.
In a traditional hiring process with physical meetings, this substitution is extremely difficult. In a fully remote process, it is alarmingly straightforward. The employer may never meet the "employee" in person. The only verification happens through a camera lens and a speaker — both of which can be manipulated.
A 2024 report from a major UK recruitment association found that one in four large employers had encountered suspected identity fraud in remote hiring processes. Among technology companies — where remote work is most prevalent — the figure was higher.
Video call verification: what it can and cannot do
For employers who do use video calls as part of their verification process (whether for IDSP-eligible individuals or as a supplementary step), it is important to understand the limitations.
What a video call can do:
- Allow the employer to visually compare the person on screen to the photograph on a document
- Enable the employer to ask questions and assess whether the person's responses are consistent with their application
- Provide a real-time interaction that is harder to fake than a static photograph
What a video call cannot do:
- Verify the physical security features of a document (holograms, watermarks, chip data)
- Guarantee that the image on screen has not been digitally altered
- Confirm that the person on the call is in the same location as the person who will be working
- Detect sophisticated real-time face manipulation software
The gap between what a video call appears to verify and what it actually verifies is significant. An employer who conducts a "thorough" video call check may feel confident in the result while remaining exposed to the same risks as an employer who conducted no check at all.
Building a remote-first verification process
For businesses that hire remotely — whether occasionally or as a default operating model — the verification process needs to be designed with the limitations of remote interaction in mind.
Use IDSPs where eligible
For British and Irish passport holders, the IDSP route provides genuinely remote verification with a high level of assurance. The technology verifies the document (chip, security features) and the person (biometric face match) in a way that visual inspection via video call cannot replicate. If your hire is eligible for this route, use it.
Arrange in-person verification for non-eligible workers
For everyone else, the legal requirement is in-person document verification. This may mean:
- Having the employee visit an office or co-working space
- Arranging a verification meeting at a neutral location
- Using a third-party service that conducts in-person checks on the employer's behalf
- Conducting the check at the start of any scheduled in-person team gathering
The inconvenience of arranging an in-person meeting is real but manageable. The alternative — conducting a non-compliant check and hoping nobody notices — is a risk that scales with enforcement activity, and the Fair Work Agency is about to make enforcement significantly more proactive.
Implement secondary identity verification
Beyond the statutory right-to-work check, consider additional verification steps for remote hires:
- Biometric comparison at onboarding — compare the person on the onboarding video call to the photograph from the right-to-work check
- Liveness detection — technology that confirms the person on camera is a real, live individual rather than a video playback or deepfake
- Periodic re-verification — particularly for the first few weeks of employment, conduct video interactions that provide opportunities to compare the working employee to the verified identity
Create an audit trail for every step
In a remote hiring process, the audit trail is even more important than in an office-based process. Every verification step — document check, identity comparison, liveness confirmation — should be logged with timestamps, the identity of the person conducting the check, and the outcome. If enforcement agencies ask how you verified a remote employee's identity and right to work, "we did a video call" is not sufficient. A documented, multi-step process with clear records is.
The trust deficit in remote work
Remote hiring requires a higher standard of verification precisely because it provides fewer natural checkpoints. In an office, colleagues see each other daily. Inconsistencies between an interview persona and a working persona are noticed quickly. In a remote environment, an employee can operate behind a screen for weeks or months before anyone raises a concern.
This trust deficit is not a reason to avoid remote hiring. It is a reason to invest in verification processes that compensate for the absence of physical proximity. The businesses that thrive with remote and distributed teams will be the ones that build verification into the hiring process as a feature, not an afterthought.
Certifyd's Verify product is designed for exactly this challenge: confirming that the person you are engaging with is who they claim to be, in real time, regardless of whether you have ever been in the same room. Combined with the Right to Work Portal for ongoing compliance management, it creates a verification layer that works for remote-first, distributed, and hybrid teams. See how it works.