Biometric Encyclopedia

Document Verification and Document Capture

Document verification is the process of confirming that an identity document is genuine, unaltered, and valid. It establishes that the evidence can be trusted, which is a separate question from whether the person presenting it is its rightful holder.

The process begins with document capture, where a user photographs or scans their government-issued document. In a remote digital onboarding flow, this is the first of two checks: the document is verified, then the holder is verified against it.

A thorough check examines several security layers at once:

  • Data consistency between the printed data, the machine-readable zone, and any barcode. Mismatches are a common signature of tampering.
  • Physical security features such as holograms, microprinting, guilloche patterns, and optically variable ink.
  • Chip data. Where a document carries an NFC chip, as ePassports do, its cryptographic signature can be validated against the issuing authority. This is the strongest available check, because the data is signed at source.
  • Template conformity against the known specification for that document type, issuer, and issue year.
  • Evidence of alteration, such as an overlaid photograph, edited text, or inconsistent compression.

Fraudulent documents are not all the same. Counterfeits are manufactured from scratch. Forgeries are genuine documents that have been altered. Digitally manipulated documents are edited in software and may never have existed physically. Two further categories matter most: fraudulently obtained genuine documents, legitimately issued on false information, and stolen documents, genuine but presented by someone else. Both can pass every authenticity check, because nothing is wrong with the document.

That is why document verification cannot stand alone. An attacker holding a stolen document and a deepfake of its holder satisfies both the document check and the face match. iProov enhances the document capture process with Dynamic Liveness®, confirming the person is the right person, a real person, and verifying right now.

Read more: