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, IDme 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:

Integration of Student ID Verification Service

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.

How It Works

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 new 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 primary use cases and workflows, as well as how these new ID Verification processes will impact our colleges. 

Open

Use Cases & Verification Workflows

Never Verified Students

New and prospective students over age 18 who decline to complete the IDme process during the application for admission process will submit their application with a status of Never Verified (IDme Workflow Status <idme_workflow_status> = null (blank or no value).

Open

Verified Students

Verified students who have completed the verification process as part of a CCCApply application submission process will maintain their verified status for 12 months unless they make a change or update specific account profile information which 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 Status Workflow

Returning students who declined to complete the IDme verification process during the application submission process will continue to see the IDme 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.

Unverified Students

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

Staff-Verified Students

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 IDme 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 IDme verification process and establish an updated status.

Staff Verified Workflows

Expired Status

A student’s “verified” status may expire if it has been over 12 months since their last verification or if they update or change certain information in their account profile, namely their first, middle, or last name, or their date of birth. The student must repeat the verification process to restore their status to verified.

Verified to Unverified or Expired Status

Primary Workflow Process

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 IDme Verification screen the next time they sign in to their OpenCCC account and attempt to submit a new application.

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 IDme verification process.

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.

Verification Status Changes

The ID.me verification process includes several workflow statuses that can change over time. The majority of new, first-time applicants are U.S. domestic and international students age 18 years or older who have not yet completed the identity verification process through ID.me. These students will encounter the IDme process after creating their OpenCCC account and before they submit their first CCCApply application. If the student opt-out of the verification process, they will have an ID.me workflow status = Never Verified (appears as no value (blank) in submitted and post-submitted application data).

• Never Verified

• Verified

• Staff Verified

• Unverified

• Expired

Account Profile Changes

The student’s ID verification status is displayed on their account profile page. A student may lose their verified status within 12 months following their successful verification if they change or update the following information in their OpenCCC account profile:

• First Name

• Middle Name

• Last Name

• Date of Birth

• Address

If a change does occur, their current verification status will revert back to “null” (unverified), and they will be encouraged to log in to IDme and upload the latest version of their primary and secondary documents, which would reflect these changes to their identity.

Data Fields & Data Delivery

Three new data fields have been added to track the student’s identity verification status, including timestamps for the ID.me confirmation and status changes. Each of these fields support “null” values and, along with the workflows themselves, have been designed with ‘shut-off’ capabilities to prevent any issues with data delivery during our traditional application season cycles. The three IDme fields are:

The ID.me Verification Workflow Status

Following this release, all students will have an ID verification status value associated with their CCCID. Students who have created an account but have not yet encountered the new verification process will have a “null” value stored as their verification status. Students who have encountered the verification system but choose not to verify (opt-out) will maintain a “null” status in the system and will be prompted with the Verify your Identity page each time they sign in until they complete the verification process. Students that successfully complete the verification process will have a “verified” status.

IDme Verification Status Change Data

These fields will be delivered to colleges with application data via the SuperGlue College Adaptor and will be available for reporting in the CCCApply Report Center and the Data Warehouse Report Server.

Strengthening Our Fraud Prevention

Another benefit of this ID verification integration is the additional strength it brings to our fraud prevention endeavors. Applications from students who successfully verify their identity before they complete their college application receive a new fraud score of 7, which ensures their application data is delivered directly to the college and not paused for additional post-submission fraud evaluations.

Pilot Testing: Send Your Feedback

Pilot testing is available now! See the pilot testing instructions below. Communicate your pilot test feedback or log any bugs with our Staff Support team: staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com.

Pilot Testing Instructions for CCCApply Standard Application

1. Go to your college’s CCCApply pilot site or the “Unicollege” generic pilot site listed below.

   • Unicollege CCC Student Account & Application System login:
     https://pilot.opencccapply.net/cccapply-welcome?cccMisCode=ZZ1

   • Tip: Forgot to bookmark your college-branded CCCApply pilot site?? Copy the Unicollege link above and replace the ZZ1 at the end of the URL with your college’s MIS code.

2. Sign in with an existing pilot testing account, or create a new account for pilot testing

3. Don’t forget to tell us of any issues you encountered during your testing. Send feedback or log any bugs with our Staff Support team: staffsupportccctc@openccc.zendesk.com

Want to test specific use cases for the OpenCCC/ID.me integration?

Follow the step-by-step instructions in the document below to test three different use cases for the OpenCCC/ID.me integration release.

IDme Implementation

Following the initial integration of IDme student identity verification (February 2024), colleges must have SuperGlue College Adaptor version 4.9.0 or higher implemented in order to receive your students' initial IDme verification status data. Contact your CCCTC College Experience Manager at cems@ccctechcenter.org to ensure you have the most current version of the College Adaptor today.

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.

Documentation

Please find all OpenCCC and CCCApply Data Dictionaries and User Guides in the CCCApply Public Documentation space.

• CCC Support Services

• Student Success Suite Home

• CCCApply Public Documentation

  • Data Dictionaries

  • Release Notes

• CCC MyPath Public Documentation

IDme Resources & Toolkits

Below are links to digital toolkits and brochures college staff can use to assist students with the identity verification process

IDme Digital Toolkit & Guides

• Click here to view and download the IDme digital toolkit for students.

CCC and IDme FAQs

Recorded Demo of the CCC and IDme Student ID Verification Process

• CCC and ID.me Student ID Verification Demo.mp4

Student & Staff Support Sites

• ID.me Help Center: https://help.id.me

• CCC Student Support website with ID.me topic: ID.me – Student Help

• CCC Staff Support website with ID.me topic: ID.me – CCC Staff Support