Know your scientist: KYC as biosecurity infrastructure

Biological AI tools for protein design and structure prediction are advancing rapidly, creating dual-use risks that existing safeguards cannot adequately address. Current model-level restrictions, including keyword filtering, output screening, and content-based access denials, are fundamentally ill-suited to biology, where reliable function prediction remains beyond reach and novel threats evade detection by design. Because the full spectrum of risks cannot be managed by any single actor, effective oversight requires shared responsibility between research institutions and model hosts. Hence, we propose a three-tier Know Your Customer (KYC) framework, inspired by anti-money laundering (AML) practices in the financial sector, that augments existing approaches, supplementing content inspection with complementary layers of user verification and monitoring. Tier I leverages research institutions as trust anchors to vouch for affiliated researchers and assume responsibility for vetting. Tier II applies output screening through sequence homology searches and functional annotation. Tier III monitors behavioral patterns to detect anomalies inconsistent with declared research purposes. This layered approach preserves access for legitimate researchers while raising the cost of misuse through institutional accountability and traceability. The framework can be implemented immediately using existing institutional infrastructure, requiring no new legislation or regulatory mandates.