Choosing the right identity verification tool is a critical decision for businesses, investigators, and individuals who need to confirm that people are who they claim to be. Two platforms that frequently come up in this conversation are Trulioo, a global identity verification service that specializes in business compliance and KYC, and facesearching, a face search engine that lets users find someone by photo across the public web. While both platforms deal with identity, they approach the problem from fundamentally different angles. Trulioo is primarily a document verification and data-matching service designed for regulated businesses. facesearching is a reverse face search tool that scans the public web — social media, news sites, and videos — to find where a face appears online. This comparison breaks down the strengths, weaknesses, and ideal use cases for each platform so you can make an informed decision.
What Is Trulioo?
Trulioo is a Vancouver-based identity verification company founded in 2011. Its flagship product, GlobalGateway, is an identity verification platform that provides businesses with access to hundreds of data sources worldwide — including government ID databases, credit bureaus, utility records, and watchlists — to verify customer identities for KYC and AML compliance. Trulioo is primarily used by financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges, payment processors, and online marketplaces that need to verify customer identities at scale. The platform offers document verification (checking the authenticity of passports, driver's licenses, and other government IDs), business verification (verifying the legal status of companies), and watchlist screening (checking individuals against sanctions and PEP lists). Trulioo's strength lies in its ability to verify identity against official, authoritative data sources in real time, making it a trusted solution for regulated industries that require rigorous compliance.
What Is facesearching?
facesearching is a face search engine designed to help individuals and organizations find someone by photo across the public web. Unlike Trulioo, which relies on official databases and document verification, facesearching works by taking a photograph of a face and scanning more than 100 platforms — including social media, news sites, blogs, forums, and video content — to find where that face appears publicly. The technology uses AI-powered facial recognition to generate a face embedding, compares it against an index of billions of public web pages, and returns results in under a minute. The photo is deleted immediately after processing, and no permanent biometric database is maintained. facesearching is used by individuals checking for catfishing and identity cloning, journalists and investigators conducting background research, law enforcement working on cold cases, and businesses verifying the identities of applicants, partners, and customers.
Key Differences: facesearching vs Trulioo
- Data sources: Trulioo relies on official databases — government IDs, credit bureaus, utility records, and watchlists. facesearching scans the public web — social media, news sites, blogs, forums, and video content.
- Verification method: Trulioo verifies identity by matching personal data (name, address, date of birth) against official records. facesearching verifies identity by matching a face against its public digital footprint.
- Primary use case: Trulioo is designed for business KYC and AML compliance. facesearching is designed for investigative research, personal safety, and identity verification through public web data.
- Geographic coverage: Trulioo covers over 195 countries through its network of data sources. facesearching covers the global public web — any country where people have a digital presence.
- Speed: Trulioo typically returns results in seconds to minutes, depending on the complexity of the verification. facesearching returns results in under a minute.
- Privacy: Trulioo processes and stores data as required for compliance. facesearching deletes uploaded photos immediately after processing and does not maintain a permanent biometric database.
When to Choose Trulioo
Trulioo is the better choice if you are a regulated business — a bank, a cryptocurrency exchange, a payment processor, or an online marketplace — that needs to verify customer identities against official, authoritative data sources for KYC and AML compliance. Trulioo's integration with government databases, credit bureaus, and watchlists makes it a comprehensive compliance solution that satisfies regulatory requirements in multiple jurisdictions. If your verification needs are primarily about confirming that a person's name, address, date of birth, and government ID are consistent with official records, Trulioo is the stronger choice. It is also the better choice if you need to verify business entities, screen against sanctions lists, or perform ongoing monitoring of customer identities for compliance purposes. Trulioo's pricing is enterprise-focused, with costs that scale with verification volume, making it most suitable for businesses that process hundreds or thousands of verifications per month.
When to Choose facesearching
facesearching is the better choice if you need to find someone by photo and verify their identity through their public digital footprint rather than through official databases. This makes it ideal for investigative research, personal safety checks, catfishing detection, and identity verification scenarios where official database access is not available or not sufficient. If you are an individual who wants to check whether a dating app match is using stolen photos, a journalist investigating a source's background, a landlord verifying a tenant's identity, or a legal professional confirming a signatory's identity, facesearching provides capabilities that Trulioo does not offer. facesearching is also the better choice if you need to search across social media and public web content — Trulioo does not offer this type of reverse face search. facesearching's pricing is accessible to individuals and small businesses, with a free preview option that lets you see results before committing.
Can You Use Both?
The two platforms are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many organizations use both Trulioo and facesearching as complementary tools in a layered identity verification strategy. A business might use Trulioo for KYC compliance — verifying customer identity documents against official databases — and facesearching for enhanced due diligence on high-risk customers — checking whether the customer's public digital footprint is consistent with their claimed identity. This layered approach provides the best of both worlds: the regulatory compliance of official database verification and the investigative depth of public web reverse face search. For organizations that need to verify identities for both compliance and investigative purposes, the combination of Trulioo and facesearching is a powerful and cost-effective solution.
Trulioo answers the question 'Is this person's ID real?' facesearching answers the question 'Is this person real?' — when used together, they provide a comprehensive picture of identity that neither can provide alone.