New Trends of Document Verification To Impede Scams

The concept of document verification started with the KYC (Know Your Customer) requirement. The banks and financial institutions became obligated to verify their customer’s identity to avoid fraud and any illicit crimes. But the question raised on how to verify the identity? Well of course, through verifying the government-issued ID documents like ID cards, passports, or driver’s license.

However, checking the ID of each and every one manually is bound to waste a lot of time, and not only that, but it is also not a very accurate method. In order to cater to the future’s needs, new trends in document authentication have begun. With this blog, we will look deep into the coming trends in document authentication but first, let’s talk about the back draws of the manual method and how it pushed the need for a more digital solution.

Manual Document Verification

The manual method includes hiring a large staff with the only duty of checking the ID documents of the person. The photo on the ID document is matched against the face of the person. This process is wholly based on the assessment of the person in charge of the process. Since humans can always make mistakes, relying on their judgment is not enough. Not to forget the fraud that has become really common in the form of identity theft.

The fraudsters have learned ways to make fake IDs look so much like real ones that humans cannot detect the authenticity of the ID card just by looking at it. Businesses have to hire a large number of people on their payroll for this mundane task. Not only do they have to spend more on resources, but they also end up losing their customers due to this long and slow process that ends up frustrating the customer altogether. 

The Digital Document Authentication 

In order to keep up with the fast-paced advancements of the world, a more suitable solution of digital document authentication was discovered. This solution uses AI technology to ensure the authenticity of the ID document more accurately.

Document verification solution works through training the AI against the various types of ID documents. Once the AI is trained properly, it can detect and capture any fake document. The best part of this solution is that it can be done online. COVID-19 pushed the businesses online and verifying the identity of customers on-premises would become impossible. 

For the digital method, the end-user has to upload a picture of their ID document online. Then they have to upload their selfie image. The face of the person is matched against the ID document photo to make sure that the card really belongs to them. Then the ID document is analyzed to see if any sort of forgery is done. There are holograms and rainbow print on the ID document that is also analyzed to ensure authenticity. 

OCR technology and Identity Document Verification 

As the fraudsters are becoming more and more sophisticated, they are even able to find ways to manipulate the digital document authentication solution as well. In order to avoid such attacks, the data is now stored in the QR code or MRZ code. OCR or Optical Character Recognition technology is able to extract the data on the MRZ code and then verify it against the data on the document. The document verification is able to detect the QR code manipulation as well.

ICR technology is basically the modern form of optical character recognition (OCR technology). When we compare OCR technology to ICR technology, we conclude the fact that the result of ICR technology still lacks accuracy. The reason for this lack of accuracy is ICR software which is currently available is constantly learning neural networks which are developed by synergizing artificial intelligence along with machine learning algorithms.

Emerging Trend NFC Verification

Are you familiar with the fact that 81% of smartphones are presently NFC enabled? NFC technology based on the Radio Frequency Identification technology is a wireless technology that transfers data from one NFC-enabled device to another. This technology is being used by banks and financial institutions to cater to cashless payments. Now the identity verification industry has adopted it to enhance the authentication of the document. More and more countries are developing digital IDs that contain NFC chips. That chip contains the personally identifiable information of the end-user including a high-resolution image. 

The NFC-enabled document authentication is done by tapping the NFC-enable device. Against the chip to extract the data in the chip. Once the data is extracted, it is verified against the given information on the ID document. The data on the chip is encrypt and it is harder to manipulate. It hence becoming the latest trend for document authentication.

The utilization of NFC technology is not only for payment transaction authentication. But also but this is also for the purpose of login authentication and identity verification of individuals. Identity verification with NFC verification technology only requires NFC-enabled ID documents and a mobile device with NFC technology.