Regula has updated the Regula Document Reader SDK to automatically check for the presence (or absence) of all the portraits in the document: primary, secondary and “ghost”.
According to the company, fraudsters use many techniques to forge a document and photo manipulation or replacement is not rare. For instance, they can morph a new picture and attach it to a valid document. The options are numerous, but they are generally related to visible primary portraits.
However, the majority of identity documents nowadays have secondary and/or ghost photos that may or may not be visible to the naked eye. Such additional portraits are added to documents in RFID chips that are read with NFC technology, in kinegrams, in lenticular images, or just placed anywhere and visualized under special lights.
The company says that the updated Regula Document Reader SDK ensures that the required quantity of the holder’s photos is present and that they are located everywhere they should be, including other pages of the document, not just the main one.
With portrait checks, it uses out-of-the-box photo comparison. The solution matches facial images in all the photos (primary, secondary and ghost) and detects any possible mismatches or manipulations that may indicate fraud, in seconds.
For deeper document authentication, Regula Document Reader SDK also offers a new feature: LASINK portrait printing technology verification. This is a special check of laser engraving technology that is used for securely printing portraits and is extremely difficult to counterfeit.
The Regula Document Reader SDK additionally provides the possibility to verify the so-called “liveness” of a document, i.e. to conduct a special session during which a person moves their ID in front of a mobile or web camera to show that they have it as a hardcopy, not a scanned image or a screenshot.
“There are two important rules that organizations looking for maximum security should follow. First, the ‘Please provide a photo of your ID’ approach doesn’t work any longer, as many images of fake IDs are often impeccable and humans and even technologies may not be able to detect forgery from a static picture,” said Ihar Kliashchou, Chief Technology Officer at Regula.
“Therefore, we strongly advise switching to a liveness-centric verification process that enables verification of physical documents and their dynamic parameters. Second, it is important to authenticate as many elements in a document as possible, ideally every single data field and security feature. However, it is not enough to just verify them one by one. You should be able to cross-check everything and find possible mismatches and inconsistencies that may indicate that you’re dealing with a forged ID.”