ID Document Authentication – The Intriguing Way of Protecting Identities

Impersonating an identity by performing desirable modifications on them can lead to various criminal activities surging in the global market. Secure customer onboarding has become mandatory for firms to protect themselves from illicit frauds carried out by fake documents. This illicit trick has given rise to the increasing number of identity thefts. Before taking major stakeholders or potential clients on board, it is feasible for the businesses to conduct an ID document authentication to reveal the true identity of the client before any transactional activity is carried out. This will not only save them from a major setback but will also uplift their brand image worldwide. 

Drawbacks of Manual ID Document Verification

Globally, many companies have shifted their working systems from manual to online due to the Covid-19 crisis. This has provided numerous benefits to them yet it has its own sets of drawbacks due to which the rate of cyber criminality has upsurge. It is no doubt that the traditional methods to authenticate documents have not proved to be effective as imposters used to easily steal the personal documents of the authentic users. Moreover, the time consumed for the verification of documents led people to abandon the whole procedure while it was in process. It caused the businesses to hire laborers to identify a document, as humans are prone to mistakes that affected the accuracy of verification. Storing piles of documents demanded better storage space which caused the company to imply huge costs on such resources. In addition, waiting for verification results impacted the interest levels of customers to opt for the company in the future. 

Verifying documents through Online Document Authentication

With fraudsters becoming sophisticated in the way they execute their crimes, companies need to pave their way into digital ID document verification services. To verify documents, the user uploads an image of the government-issued documents so that the AI-based system can fetch details from it. Using the software of OCR, important details are extracted from the image document and it is further compared with proof of evidence. Verification results are generated in a time-efficient way without the hassle of any in-branch visits. As systems are automated, the rate of errors gets minimized, proving it a better security customer onboarding process than that of the manual checks, especially for performing document verification in banks. 

Various Elements Necessary for Performing AI-Based Document Checks

• Checking the authenticity

Documents are checked for their originality to detect any forged or modified documents by the AI/machine learning verification system. The more authentic the document would be, the more reliable the client would be for the business. 

• Determining the format

Many documents have a proposed set of formats upon which consumers’ information is mentioned. The online document verification system enables detection of identity information from different templates ranging in hundreds of languages. 

• Reviewing the MRZ code

The digitally based verification service checks the authenticity of the machine-readable code to determine any chance of tempered or modification made to the document. It matches the code with the information by decoding it. 

• Detection of any tire/crumbled edges

Paper documents have a liability of getting exposed to wear and tear. It is mandatory for the user to upload the picture of a document that is not tired or has any crumbled edges otherwise it might not be acceptable for verification. 

• Inspecting the document for any forgery

Advanced software has been made available in the market to photoshop the document according to the required demands of a fraudster. The slightest change made to a document of even a single pixel will be detected by the automated ID document authentication system which the naked eye is unable to catch.

• Checking for holograms/rainbow prints

Government-issued documents have custom-made holograms and rainbow prints restricted to their use of them. Any changes made to them by tempering the hologram by the fraudster will be caught by the AI-based verification system. 

• Identifying the Special Paper and Ink

Identity documents consume the use of special inks and papers. Online document authentication systems verify the quality along with the authenticity of the paper and special inks intensively. 

Wrapping it Up

To compete with the competitors in the digital world, businesses need to perform AI-based ID document authentication before onboarding clients. Fraudsters have become smarter as they have devised new loopholes to fool companies into invading their financial accounts. Manual data checks have been ineffective as they consumed more time, more resources, and more cost which was reduced by the implementation of the online ID document verification system by achieving better levels of accuracy. This has made it challenging for the fraudsters to impersonate identities by forging, falsifying, or using any stolen documents.