ACTOR TRUST RECEIPT
Illustrative- Actor
- Human
- Personhood
- Verified
- Identity
- Verified privately
- Presence
- Continuous
- Human control
- High confidence
- AI involvement
- Low
- Session continuity
- High confidence
In short
For financial services, Proof of Actor is designed to let an institution require verified human control, or explicit human intent, before consequential transactions and high-risk account actions, and to verify the authority of AI agents acting for customers.
The question
Is the account holder actually present and in control of this action, and did they explicitly intend it?
Context
Where authentication ends
Account takeover and session hijacking succeed because authentication is a gate, not a guarantee. Once a session exists, the institution usually assumes the authenticated person is the one acting. Remote-access scams, coached victims, stolen sessions and now AI agents with delegated access all live in that assumption.
Customers will increasingly use AI agents to pay bills, move money between accounts and manage subscriptions. Banks need a way to say yes to legitimate agents while knowing whose authority they carry and where its limits are.
Proof of Actor is designed to apply stronger evidence exactly where it matters: at the high-risk moment, scaled to the consequence, without adding friction to every login.
High-risk account actions
- Changing bank or payout information
- Adding administrators or authorised users
- Resetting security settings
- Transferring assets
- Changing beneficiaries
- Authorising major purchases
What Proof of Actor is designed to establish
Trust layers this context needs
Each context asks for a different slice of the trust stack. These are the layers that matter here.
Identity
The account holder is who they claim to be.
Presence
They are present at the moment of the action.
Human control
They, not a remote operator or script, are controlling it.
Intent
They approved this action, at this time, under these conditions.
Scope of authority
Where an agent acts, the action is inside its mandate.
Policy
Typical policy for a major transfer
Proof of Actor supplies the evidence. Your organisation sets and discloses the policy.
// Proposed API - illustrative only
POST /v1/intent
{
"action": "change_beneficiary",
"require": {
"identity": "verified",
"presence": "current",
"human_control": 0.95,
"explicit_intent": true
}
}FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from multi-factor authentication?
MFA proves that someone holding the right factors can access the account. Proof of Actor is designed to establish who is acting at the moment of a specific action: presence, human control and, when required, explicit intent for that action.
Can this help with account takeover and session hijacking?
Those attacks exploit the assumption that whoever holds the session is the account holder. Requiring evidence of presence, continuity and control at high-risk moments is designed to make that assumption explicit and checkable.
How would banks handle customers' AI agents?
Through Proof of Authority: verifying the agent, binding it to the customer as principal, and checking each requested action against a revocable mandate, with explicit intent required where the institution's policy demands it.
More use cases
Other contexts
Hiring
Know whether the candidate actually completed the assessment.
Agentic commerce
Verify who stands behind an AI agent and whether a purchase is inside its mandate.
Marketplaces
Distinguish genuine users, AI-assisted users and autonomous agents.
Dating
Evidence that the person behind a profile and conversation is human.
What interaction do you struggle to trust?
Design partners help define the evidence that would change their decisions. Tell us about yours.