Incode has acquired Identiq as part of a USD $100 million investment in identity and fraud prevention systems.

Identiq develops cryptographic tools that let organisations share fraud signals without exposing underlying customer data. The acquisition adds that technology to Incode’s existing identity verification and anti-fraud platform.

The USD $100 million commitment will fund further work on on-device processing, research into privacy-enhancing technologies, engineering hires, and international expansion. Financial terms for the acquisition were not disclosed.

The move comes as companies across banking, telecoms, and online services face a sharp rise in fraud attempts involving artificial intelligence. Incode says it has processed more than 7 billion identity verifications and has seen what it calls agentic fraud rise from 3% of fraud attempts in 2024 to 40% in the first quarter of 2026.

The company estimates that figure will exceed 90% within the next 18 months. It argues that automated scams have removed a traditional constraint on fraud by allowing far more attacks to be launched at scale.

Privacy approach

Incode says its privacy model rests on three parts: automated identity verification designed to reduce human access to biometric and identity data, the option to process biometrics on a user’s device, and networked fraud detection that avoids centralised sharing of personal information.

The addition of Identiq addresses the third area. According to Incode, institutions using the system can identify repeat fraud patterns across a network while keeping customer data under their own control.

It describes this as an alternative to traditional fraud collaboration models that rely on pooled datasets or central data stores. Those older approaches, it argues, can increase exposure to breaches and create dependence on third-party data-sharing arrangements.

That issue has become more pressing as data breaches continue to climb. Incode cited the Identity Theft Resource Centre’s 2025 Annual Data Breach Report, which found 3,322 data compromises in the US last year, a record level and a 79% increase over five years, while supply-chain breaches doubled over the same period.

Executive comments

Ricardo Amper, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Incode, linked the acquisition to choices the company says it made early in its development.

“We have always believed that privacy and fraud prevention are not a tradeoff, but part of the same problem, solved together or not at all,” said Ricardo Amper, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Incode. “Identiq is the piece that enhances our Privacy by Design architecture, the natural culmination of the decisions we made on day one.”

According to Incode, Identiq spent close to a decade building its technology and invested more than USD $50 million in the effort. The technology has been patented and is designed for peer-to-peer anti-fraud collaboration.

Integrating that work into Incode’s system could extend the technology’s reach to billions of identity checks each year. The company serves customers in sectors where repeated fraud and identity abuse are costly, including financial services, telecommunications, and digital marketplaces.

Itay Levy, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Identiq, said the business was founded around a common concern among institutions.

“Every institution shared the same concern with us: how do we fight fraud together without giving up control of our customers’ data,” said Itay Levy, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Identiq. “Identiq built the answer to that very question. As part of Incode, that answer is now available to every organization that deals with massive amounts of user data.”

Broader market

The acquisition reflects a wider push by identity and security providers to balance tighter fraud controls with stricter data protection requirements. Banks and other regulated industries face pressure to detect synthetic identities, account takeovers, and automated scams while limiting the movement and storage of sensitive personal information.

Incode says its compliance programme includes SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA Attestation of Compliance, FedRAMP Ready, Age Check Certification Scheme, and the Kantara IAL2 Component Services Trust Mark. It also says it uses data loss prevention and continuous monitoring across the lifecycle of personal information held within its systems.

The group says its customer base includes eight of the top 10 US banks, eight of the top nine US telecoms groups, three of the top three global neobanks, and four of the top five global marketplaces. It employs more than 600 people across more than 25 nationalities.

For Incode, the purchase adds a privacy-focused tool aimed at a problem expanding quickly as AI lowers the cost and effort required to commit fraud. For Identiq, it places a specialist cryptographic product inside a larger identity platform with a global customer base and billions of annual verification checks.

Incode argues that fraudsters already collaborate across institutional boundaries, while the organisations trying to stop them often work with only a partial view of the threat data.

The BBC presenter has revealed that her first Radio 2 Breakfast show will launch on Monday, July 6, (6.30am – 9.30am) with her first guest set to be Hollywood star Tom Hanks.

Speaking on Vernon Kay’s Radio 2 show (9.30am-12pm), about her new venture, Ms Cox said: “Roll on the 6 July!”

She added: “For generations to come people will (probably) say ‘where were YOU when the Sara Cox Breakfast Show was launched on Radio 2 featuring the legendary Tom Hanks?'”

READ MORE: Leading UK charity collapses with £430k owed and jobs lost

The Sara Cox Breakfast Show on Radio 2 will feature a fresh new format, packed with fun and games, as well as the world’s biggest stars.

This news comes after a charity she backed, Auditory Verbal, went into liquidation with jobs lost.

Auditory Verbal stars in BBC One appeal with radio presenter Sara Cox in 2018 (Image: AVUK)

Based in Kirtlington Road, Chesterton, near Bicester, the organisation described itself as the “leading provider of Auditory Verbal therapy in the UK”, aiming to ensure all deaf children have the same opportunities in life as their hearing peers.

She was involved in an appeal for the charity in 2018, when it was featured on television.

However, since then – and more than 20 years since it was set up – the charity has found it impossible to continue and announced its closure in a statement on its website.

Bicester-based charity Auditory Verbal stars in BBC One appeal with radio presenter Sara Cox. pictured is Kurran Doal, 15 (Image: AVUK)

Earlier this year, a spokesperson said: “Like many charities, AVUK has been operating in an increasingly challenging and turbulent environment for some time.

“Over recent months, despite strong progress pursing our strategy and continued delivery of high quality, life changing support, the financial pressures facing the charity have intensified to a point where it is no longer possible for us to operate sustainably. 

“We understand that the speed of this closure may come as a shock.

Bicester Mayor Les Sibley (right) with workers at Auditory Verbal UK launching Loud Shirt Day. Pic by Jon Lewis.

“This has been an incredibly difficult decision, taken with the greatest care for the families, professionals and supporters who have placed their trust in AVUK over the years.”

In its latest company accounts the organisation listed 30 employees, all of whom will have lost their jobs.

READ MORE: Top UK charity’s £350k debts to National Lottery and Amazon

In addition it noted creditors falling within a year worth £433,557 although the company’s recently released ‘statement of affairs’ said its creditors were £349,309 in total.

The new documents also listed the businesses that Auditory Verbal owed money to.

Among the major names mentioned are Amazon (owed £476) and the National Lottery Community Fund (owed £2,062).

In addition Auditory Verbal was £83,426 in debt to the tax man HMRC and £12,815 in debt to Lloyds Bank.

Oxford city councillors elected to approve Larry Ellison’s further plans for the science park off Grenoble Road in Littlemore.

The Ellison Institute Oxford is building the Ellison Institute of Technology, a science and technology campus on the same site.

But the Grenoble Road site isn’t the only Ellison project in Oxford or indeed Oxfordshire, though.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Abir Sultan/Pool/AP)

The billionaire is also putting his stamp on the city at the former Littlemore Hospital site, transforming the 19th-century chapel in Armstrong Road into a high-end restaurant.

The institute has teamed up with Oxford University in a major strategic alliance worth hundreds of millions of pounds for various projects.

READ MORE: James Bond says he has ‘every sympathy’ for people of Oxford

What’s more, there’s the lengthy opening of the Eagle and Child in St Giles’, bought in October 2023 by Ellison for about £8m and expected to open in 2027.

And he’s bought a lot of land near Kingston Bagpuize with the aim of creating his own luxury compound – to the annoyance of some neighbours, as previously reported in national press.

Alfie Davis, a Green city councillor, said: “Billionaires tightening their grip on Oxford, controlling more of our lives is of concern to all of us as our city is increasingly bought up by an elite few.”

Larry Ellison (Image: Steve Walker/wiki)

The Eagle and Child (Image: Oxford Mail)

Mr Ellison, who has reportedly holidayed with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his private Hawaiian island, is the single largest donor of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

It’s not clear whether the pair remain friends today.

In 2017, he donated the equivalent of $21.8m and said: “Since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home.”

He has previously said that his fondness for Israel is not connected to religious sentiments but rather due to “Israelis’ innovative spirit” in the technology sector.

Mr Ellison is also close to Donald Trump, with the US president appointing him to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology earlier this year.

But Mr Davis described the multi-million pound donations to the Friends of the IDF as “reprehensible”.

“The IOF/IDF is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the Green Party, and is well documented as having indiscriminately murdered, raped and tortured Palestinian civilians and deliberately targeted children, doctors and aid workers,” the Holywell councillor said.

“The fact that profits from his ventures in Oxford with the university could be used to fund the murder of Palestinians abroad should concern us all.”

Indeed, various United Nations organs and officials have repeatedly raised concerns about the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces, especially in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory, and have warned of possible war crimes and even atrocity crimes.

The Ellison Institute did not respond to our request for comment.