Oxford International Digital Institute

Oxford International Digital Institute (OIDI) is part of Oxford International Education Group (OIEG). Founded in 1991, today OIEG’s footprint covers North America, the UK, Europe, Australia and they have helped over 580,000 students achieve their English language and post-secondary education goals. Their services include pre-sessional English courses, embedded pathway colleges, direct international student recruitment, and English language testing.

OIDI supports students and institutions with a comprehensive range of online and hybrid academic, language, and short courses. OIDI also offers the Oxford ELLT, an accessible online and on-site English language test and accreditation, which has benefitted over 100,000 students and is recognised by over 240 universities worldwide.

Business need

The Oxford English Language Level Test (Oxford ELLT) is a secure solution for assessing a candidate’s reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills for progression to higher education.

For OIDI, trust and integrity are key. By meeting rigorous integrity standards, they can ensure results are trusted and accepted by their global network of university partners. As demand for the Oxford ELLT surged, OIDI began the search for a partner who could support with remote ID verification during student registration, with the goal of enhancing fraud detection capabilities whilst saving time for internal teams. In 2022, they chose to start working with the expert team at TrustID.

“Checking the identity of a student was a very manual process which wasn’t very scalable, so we looked out to market and identified that TrustID could offer an ideal service to support us as the popularity of the Oxford ELLT grew” explained Tom Dawtrey, Director of Operations and Partnership Development at OIDI.

Solution and benefits

To future-proof and bolster its ID verification process, OIDI integrated TrustID’s verification service directly into the Oxford ELLT platform, enabling fully automated ID checks at the point of registration. The system authenticates passport images uploaded by students, compares a facial image through biometric matching, and instantly returns a traffic light-style result via the API. This seamless integration now allows OIDI to significantly accelerate student ID verification while maintaining high standards of compliance and fraud detection.

“TrustID is not just doing the comparison of the images shared by our students, it’s doing a secure check – telling us that the passport is a genuine document and that it’s been uploaded by the right person – it just completely automates our process” adds Tom.

Driving operational efficiency at scale

By automating identity verification with TrustID, OIDI significantly improved operational efficiency for the Oxford ELLT registration process. The manual process—previously taking 5–10 minutes per candidate—was replaced by remote verification checks completed in seconds. During peak periods, hundreds of students register daily, and the API integration with TrustID ensures that this volume is handled seamlessly. This automated verification has freed up staff time previously spent on manual ID reviews.

“TrustID reduces the amount of time our examiners have to spend on the administrative elements of language testing, allowing them to focus on the academic evaluation of each candidates’ test” says Tom.

The service has removed the requirement for extensive internal training on global identity documents and enables the academic team to focus on core tasks such as evaluating test results, while also reducing administrative bottlenecks and turnaround times.

Enhancing fraud detection

TrustID has played a critical role in strengthening fraud detection within the Oxford ELLT registration process. By leveraging advanced document verification and biometric matching, combined with the support of the TrustID expert human document analyst team, the system reliably identifies fraudulent and manipulated passports and imposter attempts —many of which were difficult to catch through manual checks alone. The automated traffic light system flags questionable submissions instantly, allowing OIDI to take prompt action, either to request further evidence or prevent fraudulent applicants from accessing the testing platform.

Building trust with university partners

Ensuring that the student taking the test is who they claim to be is fundamental to maintaining the integrity and credibility of the Oxford ELLT. Accurate identity verification not only guarantees that test results genuinely reflect the abilities of the registered candidate, it also supports compliance with visa and immigration regulations, where language proficiency is a critical requirement. TrustID’s independent and robust ID verification process has enhanced OIDI’s credibility with its university partners. The use of an external, specialist provider is viewed as more transparent and reliable than built-in tools, giving universities greater confidence in accepting Oxford ELLT results for admissions and to support visa processes. This assurance has become a key differentiator in a competitive market and has strengthened OIDI’s position as a trusted partner in international education.

Summary

Working with TrustID has helped OIDI to reduce verification times, enhance fraud detection, and improve operational efficiency. TrustID’s robust, independent ID checks have also strengthened university partners’ confidence in Oxford ELLT results for admissions and visa compliance, helping OIDI scale securely while maintaining high standards of trust and integrity.

“Because verification is carried out by trusted external specialists, universities have greater confidence in the process and see it as a clear benefit, it means we’re giving the best possible assurance against fraud” concludes Tom.