Melissa UK Team | Biometrics, Digital Identity Verification, Global ID Verification, Identity Resolution, Identity Verification

ID Document verification is a service used for verifying a person’s identity to ensure a person is who they say they are. Businesses will implement this solution to fulfil know your customer (kyc) and compliance measures while safeguarding themselves from potential fraudulent activity.

The Steps to ID Document Verification

Digital ID document verification works commonly in 3 stages streamlined in a 1-2-3 process and can be done remotely from a mobile app.

During the first stage, the individual will take a photo of their ID document, this can be a driver’s license or passport. The service will then use the power of machine-readable zone (MRZ) to extract the key information needed from the ID document.

The second stage is when the individual takes a selfie of them-selves from their smartphone which the service will use the power of biometrics and optical character recognition (OCR) to match both the extracted information from the ID and the selfie taken to determine a match. The Biometric feature can determine over 80 facial features to distinguish changes in age, hairstyle, makeup and more. You can learn more about Optical Character Recognition here.

The third stage is when the user is asked to perform a series of live head and facial movements like turning side to side, blinking, and staring into the video for 1 – 2 seconds. This is to determine that the person is a real person behind the video and not a static image or a person holding up a photo of someone, this prevents anti-spoofing attempts.

After the 1-2-3 process has been completed, the customer’s submission will be sent to the companies’ portal where the relevant information is cross-matched against public databases to confirm a match. The ID document verification app will then generate a pass or fail which the customer will then be successfully onboarded or being able to move on to a further stage.

What are the advantages of electronic ID document verification?

Well as a starter it takes out the manual need to check ID documents, as this can be very time consuming and a waste of resources for businesses and consumers. When compared to it the convenience of being able to do it in from your living room from your mobile phone is definitely a game-changer.

The second attribute is that it speeds up the onboarding process, in recent periods you might have had to wait up to a week before being verified with a company but now after a quick 1-2-3 process that can be done in just over a minute, users can be onboarded or verified in little to no time at all. This makes give organisations confidence in their onboarding processes and customer experience.

With both the above, this third gives organisations a safeguard of protecting themselves against fraudulent activity and staying compliant towards Know Your Customer (KYC) and industry Compliance measures. As we move forward toward a more digital approach to everyday business it’s vital that businesses are aware of the potential fraudulent threat which also grows with digitalisation, so implementing savvy technology like ID document verification that harnesses the power of Biometrics, OCR and AI will futureproof onboarding and verification processes in the years to come.