Today, with digital products being in popular demand, customer standards have also changed. The pinnacle of identity verification is to provide consumers of online services with a sense of security and a meaningful user experience. Document verification is one of the most common ways of performing ShuftiPro identity verification to confirm user authenticity.
The process takes into account documents issued by the government such as a national ID card, passport, utility bill, tax statements, or a driver’s license. The document verification systems usually accept IDs that have a user’s original and recent photo so that a complete verification could be performed by matching it against the user’s live facial identity.
Document Verification – Walkthrough
Simply put, the document verification process takes place in the following three steps:
Step 1 – Obtain User Data
In the initial step, the users scan their identity documents through a webcam or a camera on their mobile device. The systems working at the back-end extracts essential information like user credentials and their photo using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The user also takes a selfie of their face for further verification checks.
Step 2 – Identity Evaluation
Once the user completes the process of providing important information, the submitted data is put through a number of checks. This evaluation process is used to verify whether the information is authentic and the user is legitimate or not. It is usually carried out by a system powered by artificial intelligence which compares the user’s live face with their photo on the identity document.
Step 3 – Document Checks and Sharing Results
Once the user details are evaluated, the document is also checked for possible forgery, tampering, photoshop, and missing holograms, etc. The results of either a failed or successful verification are shared with the end-user or client once all the checks have taken place.
Significance of Document Verification
Document verification plays a significant role in protecting user identity from fraudsters, preventing illicit money laundering, and in remote onboarding of customers. Some key benefits of incorporating document authentication in your business are stated below:
Preventing Identity Theft
Identity theft fraud is a growing problem all around the globe which brings serious consequences for businesses and customers alike. Pesky criminals on the internet are always on the move with their unethical motives to hijack the identity of users and take over their accounts. According to a survey by Statista in 2020, the risk of identity fraud is expected to increase at a rate of 39% in the next 12 months due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
Online businesses are always on the verge of data breaches and cyberattacks since they involve an influx of monetary operations daily. This creates the need for protecting customer data from illegal identities looking to exploit user credentials for their gains. With the power of digital document verification, online businesses can prevent bad actors from hijacking their customers’ identities.
Anti Money Laundering
Criminals use dubious ways and means to clean black money acquired from illegal sources to use it in the legal banking system. The process is usually carried out through an online platform which serves as a channel for performing illegitimate operations. The ill-gotten money is then used for even more harmful activities like terror financing and drug trafficking. These contribute to sabotaging society at large and must be stopped at all costs.
An easy method to mitigate money laundering is to employ online document verification services in business platforms. This way, whenever a new customer gets enrolled in a business, they are verified against Anti Money laundering guidelines and their original identity documents. This significantly reduces the risk of criminal identities associating ties with business entities.
Remote Customer Onboarding
Customer onboarding has become effortless with the advent of document verification. Now, with these services, clients can onboard any business around the world by scanning identity documents at the comfort of their homes, in real-time. These days, document authentication provides a foolproof method to validate customer identity by utilizing AI-based solutions to take down potential identity theft.
To sum it up, document verification uses real identity documents to remotely verify legitimate customers worldwide, in real-time through a safe and secure channel.