The What and the How of Document Verification

Traditionally, financial institutions and other highly regulated industries relied on verifying the authenticity of ID and other official documents by reviewing them in person. The customer would present a stack of paperwork, a government-issued ID, and the employee would be left to discern whether it could be trusted or not. But in our age of digital transformation, document verification has gone digital. This means the process is significantly more streamlined and efficient to carry out. So how does digital document verification work?

What is Digital Document Verification?

Digital document verification involves verifying the authenticity of a document through online means. Official documents, such as a driver’s license, bank statement, or other government-issued documents, are typically accepted for verification purposes. Digital document verification scans the document for markers of authenticity including watermarks, distinctive fonts, stamps, and more. In addition, personally identifiable information (PII) from the customer’s ID is matched with data extracted from the document’s machine-readable zone (MRZ). While a customer is onboarding digitally, they can simply upload a picture of their government-issued ID and official documents. An algorithm is able to determine the authenticity of each. No physical paperwork is required to be presented.

How Does Digital Identity Verification Work?

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are used to identify the authenticity of official documents. Here’s how it works:

1. The customer receives a text message which opens a secure collaboration room.
2. The agent requests specific documents and stipulations.
3. The customer snaps and submits a photo of the documents using their cellphone camera.
4. The algorithm performs a series of validation checks.

Document verification includes some of the following verification checks:

• Face and orientation detection
• Edge detection and cropping
• Front to back data correlation
• Cross checks on thousands of global IDs
• Colorspace analysis
• Headshot integrity
• Selfie to ID photo match
• Selfie liveness detection

The accuracy rates are extremely high thanks to the sheer number of variables that are checked during the document collection process.

The Benefits of Digital Document Verification

This automated, machine learning-driven approach is much more effective than a manual review because it spots forgeries with greater accuracy and speed. False positives are avoided. And any agent can use it with confidence, as digital document verification requires no manual work or decision-making. That means the accuracy is the same whether an experienced or inexperienced agent is managing the transaction. There are many benefits to harnessing digital document verification. Here are a couple of them:

• Highly accurate forgery and spoofing detection
• Scalable
• No latency, even with volume spikes
• Promotes data-driven decision-making
• Enables faster onboarding

The machine learning used by document verification harnesses large datasets to attain high accuracy, and training data size is one of the main determinants of a model’s predictive power. Machine learning models rely on such data to train themselves and constantly improve.

Digital Document Verification for Faster Completion

Today’s consumers expect streamlined, low friction onboarding. As document verification gains ubiquity, requiring in-person, manual document verification is a liability. Customers lose patience and the brand’s reputation is tarnished. Given that 84% of consumers say that a good onboarding experience is as important as a company’s products and services, companies must prioritize the speed of their document collection and verification processes. Lightico’s document verification works in tandem with its ID verification feature, as well as many other customer-facing capabilities such as eSignatures and eForms. Together, they allow customers from regulated industries to breeze through automated workflows, completing tasks quickly and in one session. To learn more about Lightico’s Digital Completion platform, visit Lightico.com.