OREANDA-NEWS. In the current economic climate businesses, more than ever, need to capitalize on opportunities to lower costs while increasing their ability to defend themselves against potential litigation. While online training and testing is filling this need for many, providing opportunities for personnel development at low cost and on a flexible schedule, legal issues arise due to ability to proctor and verify identity in online testing environments.

While traditional training and testing allows for a supervisor or proctor to monitor individual participation, this is not as easy online and can lead to issues with proving an individual has taken necessary workplace training, or completed a test fairly.

While online proctoring prior to Integrity Advocate did exist, it was both expensive and intrusive. Organizations using previous versions of online training were required to install software that required administrator permissions on each computer being used, making broad access difficult, if not impossible. Other identity verification and proctoring services were in most cases not considered 'reasonably practical' to use broadly due to cost and need to schedule proctoring sessions.

"Reasonably practical" refers to the primary legal test in determining if the advent of new technology should be required for use. Integrity Advocate meets all of the associated requirements of this test. It can be added to any training site in minutes and has a low cost per session.

The Industry Occupational Safety and Health Council of Alberta (IOSH Alberta) stated in a recent best practice guide for identity verification and proctoring, "Organizations which fail to adopt technological advancements that are readily available and economical are vulnerable to breaching the hierarchy of control measures."

The Integrity Advocate software uses facial recognition software to match the individual in the camera view to the photo on the submitted government-issued identification to verify identity. Algorithms identifying behavior work with facial detection throughout the session to determine whether a participant is following the rules of the session.

Personal information collected during the verification process is protected using 256-bit encryption, the same as used by major financial institutions, ensuring that data is kept safe and secure. The software also identifies insecure web browsers and restricts their access to the system to maintain data security.

In addition to the legal benefit of using Integrity Advocate with current online training, organizations have the ability to save billions of dollars globally by moving workplace-related training online. One multinational energy producer currently using Integrity Advocate says their training expenditures have been reduced by millions of dollars, five million over a two-year period, since adding the application to their training sites.

Integrity Advocate is the first proctoring software of its kind that is customizable, economical, secure and trusted and can be applied to any website in minutes.