Financial damages put forward by ID-related theft and fraud have become a serious dilemma for LEAs, business organizations, and end-users. The recent decades have experienced a rapid technological boom. Understandably, the criminals are adopting new techniques and it is becoming a headache for the rest of the world to tackle their guile. Moreover, identity fraud has surged thanks to an increase in digital banking activities and online shopping. Thus, the identities of the customers need to be protected through ID and document verification services which will benefit both the businesses and the consumers.
What Do You Mean by Document Verification?
Document verification is a process of validating the identity documents of customers before onboarding them. Any government-issued ID document like CNIC, passport, driving license, etc. can be used to verify someone’s identity. This process is still being performed manually by physically carrying the ID documents to the place of verification. But, the AI-powered digital document verification can remotely verify a person’s identity by scanning their documents.
Strategies Devised to Commit Document Fraud
The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent digital verification process have given rise to new types of document manipulation methods leading to businesses like castle.io which can be found at this link if required. Following are the various methods employed by fraudulent actors to tamper with documents and steal the identities of victims.
- Photocopies and Screenshots – In the digital identity document verification process, criminals present edited screenshots or photocopies of someone else’s valid credentials. If the organization is not using an advanced online document verification system, then the criminal is likely to get away with this scam.
- Electronic Forgery – This technique is used by criminals to manipulate and replicate a valid identity document using software like Photoshop. When these forged documents are then presented as valid ones, then a human eye cannot differentiate between them.
- Old and Worn Out Documents – At some point in time, the physical documents will see considerable wear and tear. Moreover, the information inscribed with the ink can also fade with time. So, it becomes obvious that fraudsters will try to deliberately exploit this opportunity.
- Holograms – A hologram is a two-dimensional or three-dimensional photo or a video that replicates a real-world object. Fraudsters use them in digital verification processes.
AI as a Backbone of Document Verification Process
The application of machine learning and artificial intelligence is proving to be a savior for businesses performing digital document verification. As the efficacy of AI and ML models depends on the complex data fed to them, the document authentication solutions continuously scale their AI and ML models to stay one step ahead of document forgery.
The quality of training of these models depends on the amount, complexity, and relativity of the data fed to them. As soon as the AI model is trained, document verifications can be performed with no hassle whatsoever.
What Differentiates A Digital Solution from the Manual One?
Some of the differentiating factors of an automated document solution are stated below:
- The risk of human error due to a lapse of judgment in manual document checking is removed.
- Comparatively lesser cost of the verification process.
- Scientific analysis of signatures, watermarks, and other patterns can be recognized to increase the reliability of document validation services.
- Detection of forgery attempts that are not caught by manual verification.
- Online solutions can be linked to global data repositories.
- Digital solutions are more accurate, fast, and reliable.
Some Must-Have of an Address Verification System
Following traits must be a part of a document verification system:
- Digital biometric verification of users.
- AI and ML-based scanning of documents.
- Ability to detect electronic manipulation done by photo editing software.
- An advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool to extract information from the documents remotely.
- Publicly provided accuracy rate over 95%.
In a Nutshell
Automated document verification systems are capable of identifying all the known kinds of document manipulation attempts. From verifying the authenticity and originality to document attestation, online verification services are built to counter everything that comes in their way. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these services a necessary tool for businesses looking to verify the identities of their customers.
