The market for ID verification solutions has a huge number of options, which gives the impression that not only is the market full but that any solution can check any required documents in any situation.
Whether it’s Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, a credit check to protect your business from financial risk, flight check-in, health insurance issues, using banking services, or any other IDV business process, there are many options to suit your needs and budget.
ID verification: Is it All About Technology?
Modern software solutions for IDV (identity document verification) are full of cutting-edge technologies. AI algorithms and neural networks are used to quickly and accurately recognize security features and specific parts of IDs. Machine-readable zones (MRZs), barcodes, and RFID chips all have information that machines can read.
Even with all of that, the technologies alone are not enough to do a good job of verifying ID. In order to prove that an ID document is genuine or to find out if it is fake, an IDV solution needs to know in detail what the real document should look like. What security features to have, how to deploy them, etc. ID cards are updated and frequently reissued, so the database must be large and always up-to-date.
Also, real IDs are not treated like museum pieces in any way. People have used them for years. They put and take them out of their pockets and bags many times, travel with them, and give them to many other people.
A lot of the time, identity documents are bent, torn, and left out in the sun, water, etc. All of this makes them old, worn, and weathered, which definitely affects how safe they are. A good ID verification online provider will keep this as a priority.
A reliable ID verification online provider has a better understanding of the databases and can make this elaborate task very easy. The size of the worldwide identity verification market, which was estimated at USD 8.43 billion in 2021, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.35% from 2022 to 2030 to reach USD 32.94 billion. Hence, there are a plethora of providers to choose from.
Mobile Devices to Forensic Labs
No one knows more about identity documents than forensic experts. These are people who have spent years using special hardware and software to look at thousands of different IDs, such as border control officials. They use high-quality magnifying glasses, optics, different kinds of lights (ultraviolet, infrared, etc.), and a lot of other professional tools to look at every tiny detail on an ID document.
Suppose a company that makes ID verification software is in touch with forensic research in the fields of document forgery and making forensic hardware. In that case, it gives them valuable information that helps them understand what real ID verification is. It lets the company look at a huge number of IDs, develop and fine-tune its hardware, and talk to forensic experts.
Adding IDs to the database and finding new or better ways to verify them usually goes like this: forensic experts start the process. With the help of the company’s professional tools, they look at the document under different types of light and at different levels of magnification.
After forensic experts look at the document and analyze it, the ID verification company adds new checking algorithms to all of its solutions, tests them, and adds new information to the document database that backs up its solutions. This method ensures quality at every step of the testing process and gets new ideas to market as quickly as possible.
Another important point is that all of this knowledge is used to build the software code. You might be surprised to know that the ID verification solutions software code is the same for something as common as your smartphone as well as something as delicate as a forensic device.
Coverage Across The World
IDV solutions can be used in almost every country because of the solutions that have a deep understanding of the documents. A good ID verification software has technology that can read the IDs in the native languages, but it also can be used in different regions with different languages.
Let’s go on a trip through the huge US driver’s license universe. All 50 states have their own types of driver’s licenses, such as general, student, with or without work permits, etc. In 2020, there were nearly 228.2 million drivers with licenses in the United States.
In that year, California granted the most licenses nationwide, with a total of almost 27 million. California is not only the state in the U.S. with the most licenses, but it also has the highest population overall, accounting for close to 12% of the entire population. Each one has a different way of writing the birth date: in a different place and with a different color ink.
Suppose a vendor knows all of them and carefully looks at every sample. In this case, that software can easily distinguish one, read them all, pull out the information it needs (including category), and tell you if this US driver’s license can be used as an ID. As you can see, this task is almost impossible for her alone, and not even for most of his IDV solutions currently on the market.
So, no matter where your business is or how big you want it to get, you can be sure of the accuracy and quality of ID checks when you use IDV software backed by forensic expertise and a detailed document database.