The verification of documents has dramatically influenced businesses and users in a positive approach. It has streamlined the processes of businesses and enhanced security measures by mitigating the risks of fraud. Document verification identifies the users while executing the onboarding process. By verifying the documents of contracts, financial records, and IDs, businesses ensure compliance with regulations that all their customers are identified as authentic.
Over a period of 10 years, from 2017 to 2027, global spending on identity verification is expected to increase a lot, going from about $4.93 billion to over $18 billion. Identity verification is important for keeping the credentials safe because it ensures that only authentic users can access it. This helps prevent imposters from getting into protected information and causing trouble. The operational efficiency has improved the systems by following the verification trends.
Understand the Types of Required Documents that Need Verification
There are various diversified businesses that require different types of document verification. For instance, banks need identity cards for document validation while ride-sharing applications require only the driver’s license to authenticate their users.
There are different types of document verification, which are given below:
- Address Verification
- Passport Verification
- Driving License Verification
- Database Validation
- Birth certificate Authentication
- Educational Certificate Verification
The working Mechanism of Document Verification to Safeguard Business Integrity
There are four major steps involved in the process, which are called verification of documents.
- Document Data Capture
- Data Extraction
- Document Validation
- Manual Check for Verifying Documents
The first step in verifying the documents is document data capture. The documents are collected by the end users, who are called customers, employees, and vendors. After collecting the required documents, the pre-processing of the documents is done to analyze the borders of the papers, improving the color and brightness of the image to ensure the extraction of the data in the following step.
The secondary step in document verification is the extraction of data. The user uploads a photo of the document for the verification process. To access the information, the data needs to be extracted. This process can be done by utilizing optical character recognition (OCR). After removing all relevant data, it’s compared with the document that the user provided. For instance, if a utility bill is uploaded as proof of address, the address in the document is checked against the one the user gave. Any differences can identify it as inauthentic.
In the next stage of the process, the focus shifts to validating the provided document. It is done by conducting various validation checks depending on the type of document under scrutiny. These checks consider multiple aspects, such as ensuring all pages are included for multi-page documents. It examines the edges for signs of tampering or cropping. Then, it identifies special security features like watermarks and holograms commonly found in official documents, analyzes the colors and lighting in photos to detect any alterations or forgeries, and possibly cross-references the document details with an issuing database to confirm its legitimacy.
The last step is a manual check for document verification. If the verified document is identified as flagged, there are two options available for businesses to deal with such a situation. The first is to simply reject the document, and the other one is to verify it with manual force. Manual verification reduces the happenings of false negatives. It includes the collection of additional alternative documents from the users for double-checking.
Use Cases of Document Verification Process
There are various cases of document verification used in daily life in this digital era. Some of them are mentioned below:
Employee Onboarding Process
Businesses verify the identity of the customers during account openings. Many organizations undergo the document validation process to ensure the
authenticity of the required documents. The potential institutions that follow the verification of documents are healthcare, banks, educational institutions, and the Corporate world.
Financial Transactions
Verification of documents is important in financial transactions such as for employing loans, bank account creation and conducting high-value transactions. It helps in ensuring the legitimacy of the transactions and prevents financial fraud.
Education Departments
Education departments use document attestation for verifying their students in order to authenticate the identities, academic credentials and enrollment status. It is important for maintaining the integrity of the academic records and preventing frauds.
Online Platforms and Marketplaces
E-commerce platforms and online marketplaces act as service providers and use document verification to authenticate seller identities, business registrations, and compliance with policies. They utilize the online document verification service to validate their customers.
KYC (Know Your Customer) Compliance
Businesses utilize the document verification process to comply with KYC regulations. It is done by verifying the user identities and granting necessary credentials to prevent potential frauds like money laundering and identity theft.
Final Verdict
In this world of digitization, every system requires the verification of documents. It is necessary to implement strong verification systems to maintain their reliability and security. Small businesses and potential customers who utilize digital platforms should follow KYC compliance for verification so their security can be maintained in a safe way.
