ID.me Identity Verification Integration
ID.me Identity Verification was integrated with the OpenCCC student account system in February 2024.
Introduction
Under the direction of the Chancellor’s Office, a new third-party identity verification service is being introduced into the current admission application workflow to reliably verify and confirm the identity of students and prospective applicants before they enter the CCC system.
To improve student use of ID.me for identity verification, ID.me needs to be more tightly coupled with the identity verification process required to disburse financial aid funds, specifically cash disbursements such as Cal Grant and Pell Grant.
On this page:
IDme Verification Service Overview
The initial phase of this project includes integrating an opt-in/opt-out “ID verification” step for all applicants age 18 years or older. The ID verification step is positioned between the OpenCCC student account system and the CCCApply admission applications, allowing colleges to capture provable personal information to confirm the student’s legal identity.
By adding digital, direct, and self-service identity-proofing software into our existing workflows allows our local A&R and financial aid staff to focus their time on the students who need extra support and the individuals who cannot easily prove their identities, such as:
Undocumented
Minors
Special Needs
Fraudulent/bad actors trying to enter the system.
About ID.me
ID.me provides a trusted pathway for students to securely verify and protect their identity information in accordance with federal standards. Additionally, ID.me specifically provides the same technology used for identity verification and fraud reduction currently used across 37 California state agencies and 15 federal agencies, notably:
California Employment Development Department
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
U.S. Internal Revenue Service
U.S. Social Security Administration
Read more: Go directly to http://ID.me for more information.
Used widely across California state agencies, over 8 million Californians already have an ID.me account making it easier to complete the new verification process.
Benefits to Students
Protects student identities
Streamlines student enrollment and financial aid disbursements
Helps prevent bad actors from stealing spots in online
Large government agencies use ID verification
Benefits to System
Reduces fraud across the system
Supports Admissions & Financial Aid Processing time
Focus more A&R staff time on student support vs fraud evaluations
Large government agencies using ID.me
Per CCC privacy laws new and existing students will have an option to opt-out of ID verification.
Primary User Flow Processes
To facilitate the ID verification process a series of screens guide the student appropriately after creating their OpenCCC account, signing in to OpenCCC, or updating specific account Profile information depending on the different use cases.
The CCC ID.me Verification Page
New and existing students over age 18 may verify their identity as part of the CCCApply application process. This verification step will come right after the new student creates their OpenCCC student account or an existing student signs in to their OpenCCC account before they begin filling out an application.
New, First-Time Students
Following account creation new applicants are presented with the CCC ID.me Verification screen where they are encouraged to proceed to ID.me to verify their identity or decline the verification process at that time and continue to the application. Following this decision point, the appropriate verification status value and timestamps are stored. If the student chooses to decline at this point and continue to the application without initiating the ID.me process their verification workflow status will be null (blank) and no values are stored with the application data.
Returning Students
Returning students who have an existing OpenCCC account and have submitted an application in the past without completing the ID.me verification process, will encounter the CCC ID.me Verification screen the next time they sign in to their OpenCCC account and attempt to submit a new application.
The CCC IDme Verification page does not display if the student is currently ID.me verified or staff verified. Learn what prompts the Re-Verify Identity page.
Proceed with Verification (Opt-In)
If the student chooses to proceed with verification, they are presented with the Sign In to ID.me screen to start the ID.me verification process.
Successful Verification
Once the student has verified their identity with ID.me, they are routed back to CCCApply or their intended application or service. Once returned, if they find that their CCC application session has timed out, they may need to sign back in to their OpenCCC account through the college’s CCCApply application link to continue their application session. They will see a “Verified” status in their account profile and will not have to re-verify for the next 12 months (or unless a change is made to their first name, last name, address or date of birth).
Decline Verification (Opt-Out)
If the student chooses not to verify their identity, they will be prompted to confirm this decision on the Decline Verification screen or return back to complete the verification process. This modal informs students that if they decline to verify their identity at this point, their access to financial aid may be limited or delayed moving forward.
If the student confirms that they want to decline to verify, they are routed to the application or service they originally intended to access.
Note: Students who choose not to verify their identity (opt-out) may proceed to their intended application or service; however, a “null” or unverified workflow status will be stored for the student in the system. This status will prompt the system to re-engage them the next time they sign in to OpenCCC or CCCApply. The student will always have the option to decline; nevertheless our goal is to encourage students to protect their personal information.
Updated OpenCCC Account Information
For instances where the personal information entered by the student during the OpenCCC account creation process doesn’t exactly match the information verified during the ID.me process, some values returned by ID.me to OpenCCC with the Verified status may override the original values entered by the student.
The information that ID.me expects to match exactly, including case tense and spelling, are:
Legal First Name
Legal Last Name
Date of Birth
If this happens, OpenCCC will display a message onscreen the next time the student logs in to their OpenCCC account profile indicating that some profile information may display differently than the values they originally entered before successfully verifying their identity with ID.me.
The message reads, “Some values on your Profile may have changed, depending on what information you provided during the identity verification process. Please note that if you need to make changes, it may affect your verification status. You can re-verify at any time, if necessary.”
Verification Process & Statuses
All new and existing adult students (age 18 and older) will be encouraged to verify their identity during the CCCApply admissions process and when submitting a California College Promise Grant (CCPG) online application. To facilitate this, several verification workflows have been incorporated into the OpenCCC account creation and sign-in processes that will guide the student to the application for admission according to their ID verification status (verified or unverified).
Below are summaries of the verification status workflows and how these processes will impact our colleges.
The verification status workflows are:
Never Verified User
New and prospective students over age 18 who decline to complete the ID.me identity verification during the application for admission process will submit their application with a status of Never Verified (ID.me Workflow Status <idme_workflow_status> = null (blank or no value).
Verified User
Verified users who have completed the verification process as part of a CCCApply application submission process can maintain their verified status for 12 months unless they make a change or update specific OpenCCC account profile information which then requires a re-verification. If a verified student submits another application within 12 months of uninterrupted verified status, they will bypass the ID.me process entirely and be taken directly to their intended application or service upon sign in.
Never-Verified to Verified User Workflow
First-time or returning students who declined to complete the ID.me verification process during the application submission process will continue to see the ID.me verification screens each time they sign in to their OpenCCC account or other integrated service. These students are encouraged to Verify their identity by signing in to their OpenCCC account and clicking on the Verify Now link at the bottom of the Profile page.
Staff-Verified User
To support certain student populations including incarcerated students, the OpenCCC Account Creation Tool was developed to give colleges an option to create an account and submit an admission application on behalf of a student who isn’t able to do so themselves, and verify that account based on the identity information that the college has pre-validated. These accounts are stored with the verification status of “staff verified” at the time the account is created, and will maintain this status for 12 consecutive months or until the student is able to claim ownership of the account themselves. At that time, the student will be given the opportunity to complete the ID.me verification process and establish an updated status.
Staff Verified Workflow
Unverified User
An Unverified status means that the student was actually verified within the last year (or within 365 days from last Verified status) but has had a status change which has caused the student to become “unverified”. A change in status from verified to unverified happens when the student makes a change or updates specific account profile information, including:
First name
Last name
Address
Date of Birth
Verified to Unverified Status Workflow
Never Verified vs. Unverified Statuses
The majority of never verified students are new and existing domestic and international students age 18 years or older who have never completed the ID verification process. These students chose to decline to verify their identity the first time they encountered the ID.me Verification screens, as well as every other time they signed in to their OpenCCC account and/or submit a new - resume an in-progress - CCCApply application.
The Unverified status is different. This status indicates that the student had once been Verified (completed the ID.me verification process) or Staff Verified but a change in status has occurred within the last 365 days since their ID.me verification.
Expired Status
Any status may expire if it has been over 12 months (one year) since the last IDme confirmation timestamp. If 365 days has lapsed since the user’s last verification confirmation, the next time the user attempts to sign in to their OpenCCC account to submit a new CCCApply application (or submit a CC Promise Grant application) or update their account profile, the user will be presented with a Re-Verify Your Identity page and asked to reconfirm their identity.
To re-verify, the student will be redirected to IDme and sign-in with their IDme account credentials and security code, which will be sent to their mobile phone or other MFA method. Once completed, the user will be routed back to CCCApply to continue.
Verified to Unverified or Expired Status
Verification Status Changes
Following the integration of the IDme verification process in February 2024, all students will have an ID verification status value associated with their CCCID.
While the current process strongly encourages students to verify their identity with ID.me at the time they create their OpenCCC account and before submitting a CCCApply application, students who do not complete the verification process (decline to verify at that time) will have null (blank) values in the three IDme data fields delivered with their application data. Similarly, existing or returning students who preceded the IDme verification integration will have an initial IDme verification status of null (blank) stored in their OpenCCC account profile. In both of these cases, the student will have an IDme status of “never verified” until they return and complete the verification process with ID.me. Students that successfully complete the verification process will have a “verified” status.
Status Change Workflows
Integral to the ID.me integration are workflows that will change a student user’s verification status over time and from certain events that may cause a user’s status to change. If the system detects a user’s status change, the college is notified by way of the IDme Status Change Report and/or through a change notification delivered by Superglue to the new Events Table.
Workflow | Status Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|
A student completes the verification or re-verification process with ID.me. |
|
|
A college staff manually verifies a student’s identity. |
| Pertains to new accounts created by college staff only. |
A verified or staff-verified student’s status expires. |
|
|
A change or update is made to the student’s Account Profile data required for identity verification. |
| First Name |
Status Changes from Account Profile Changes
A Verified or Staff Verified status will change if an update or change is made to any of the following fields in their OpenCCC Account Profile:
First Name
Last Name
Date of Birth
Address
If a change does occur, the student’s current verification status will be set to Unverified and the student will encounter the Re-Verify Your Identity page upon their next OpenCCC or CCCApply sign in attempt.
Note: Similarly, an Expired status will be prompted to re-verify and will encounter the Re-Verify Your Identity page upon their next OpenCCC or CCCApply sign in attempt.
At all times, the student’s ID verification status is displayed at the bottom of their Account Profile page.
IDme Data Fields & Status Change Notifications
In order to keep colleges informed of post-submission and account profile status changes, event-driven notifications can be delivered to the college to in two formats:
Events-driven status changes delivered to the new Events Table via Superglue
These notifications will allow colleges to track the student’s current IDme verification status for eligibility for financial aid and other fraud prevention activities.
Both status change notification vehicle deliver changes is slightly different formats and field names. For data element definitions and breakdowns to interpret each notification vehicle, see the ID.me Status Change Data Fields page.
When a student’s IDme (verification) status changes:
this vehicle… | …indicates the status change value through this field |
|---|---|
Status Change Report | <current_idme_workflow_status> |
Events Table | <idme_status> |
Regardless of the vehicle, the “status” field values are the same.
See ID.me Status Change Data Fields page for data fields, values, and how to interpret the change notification vehicles.
Implementation & Support
To access your students' ID.me Verification data and status change notifications, colleges should work with their ESS Implementation engineer to get started on the following updates:
Update your Superglue College Adaptor schema to version 5.1 or higher;
Request access to the IDme Status Change Report
Contact Enabling Services & Support
For more information or to get started with ID.me data, please contact your CCCTC College Experience Manager at cems@ccctechcenter.org for assistance.
OpenCCC Student Support
The OpenCCC Helpdesk will continue to provide student support, and as usual, the College Support Services team will respond to staff support requests.
ID.me Help Center & Support Process
Support for the new ID verification process will be provided by the ID.me Help Center.
Primary & Secondary Identity Verification Documents
ID.me provides information on the primary and secondary Identity verification documents that may be required when a student attempts to verify their identity though the self-service option or on a video call with an ID.me Video Chat Agent. These documents follow NIST identity verification standards.
Documentation & Resources
Please find all OpenCCC and CCCApply Data Dictionaries and User Guides in the CCCApply Public Documentation space.
ID.me Resources & Toolkits
Below are links to digital toolkits and brochures college staff can use to assist students with the identity verification process
ID.me Digital Toolkit & Guides
Click here to view and download the ID.me digital toolkit for students.
CCC and ID.me FAQs
Recorded Demo of the CCC and ID.me Student ID Verification Process
Student & Staff Support Sites
ID.me Help Center: https://help.id.me
CCC Student Support website with ID.me topic: https://openccc-support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/22511674592269-ID-me
CCC Staff Support website with ID.me topic: https://openccc-staffsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/23454507132685-ID-me