Why change at all?

You already have an optical identity verification solution...

We get it. You have been investing big in optical checks for verifying your customers’ identities. And depending on your industry requirements, it seems like a perfectly suitable option. Is it, though? Is your solution allowing false accepts? Are your customers happy with the process, or could conversion be better?

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Why change at all?

Optical can be fooled
Optical causes churn
Optical creates data mistakes
NFC has better conversion
NFC can scale, is fully automated
NFC-first, not NFC-only
NFC is deepfake-proof

Below are the compelling reasons explained why optical doesn’t cut it when compared to NFC.

Optical solutions can be fooled, often quite easily

Are you positive that the image of the identity document isn’t rigged? That the person on the other end is actually there, and the identity document is authentic? Our tests have shown that a bit of photoshopping does the trick for identity documents in way too many situations with optical solutions.

Optical software did not pick up on our doctored pictures and approved the obviously fraudulent documents without question.

We did not need expensive equipment or expertise for that. Photo paper and a printer should do the job.

As a consequence, you need to complement that first customer onboarding step with costly, complicated, and data-intensive fraud analyses along the edges of what GDPR would allow. Why not create certainty in a single step using ReadID?

When optical solutions are easily fooled by Photoshop and a home printer, they don't stand a chance against deepfakes and generative AI.

NFC identity verification on the other hand is not only deepfake-proof but makes deepfakes irrelevant. Rather than relying on a picture of a picture, NFC relies on cryptographically signed document chips. These chips cannot be duplicated or replicated with AI technology. Deepfakes don’t have chips in their fake IDs. With an NFC reading, the face image in the chip is available in high-resolution, and a replacement of any kind, AI generated or not, will be detected by the security mechanisms inherent in these chips.

In short, when it comes to remote identity verification, you cannot trust what you see of an identity document - only what you read and verify with NFC from the chip inside it.

Optical causes churn

Optically entered details still must be verified manually sometimes, by a qualified person sitting in an office. That takes time and can lead to repeated questions for your new customer. Research found that 10 minutes is a tipping point for many customers to open an account and for transactions in less than three minutes.

Any manual intervention will take you way beyond that tipping point. Enough for people to break off the process before completion, and turn to more instant alternatives. ReadID takes less than a minute, even with face verification. This leads us to the next point.

10%

of obtained words with optical verification contain errors

Optical character recognition comes with mistakes

It's hard to create a great picture of something as small as an identity card or a driver's license. When image quality may be poor, it can lead to an incorrect reading of details and misspelt names and dates. Tests indicated up to 10% of words contain errors and that diacritics are usually ignored. You simply cannot afford that level of fallacy if you want to Know Your Customer effectively.

When reading the chip you are certain that all data is correct and has not been tampered with. Signed by the corresponding authorities. No mistakes are possible.

NFC has better conversion, much better

Our customers have created conversion percentages of over

There are many, perfectly human reasons why optical identity verification can go wrong. Someone may have held a thumb over vital information while taking a photograph. The sun or a light caused glare on the ID card’s plastic, making the displayed information unreadable. Or a laptop screen’s light bouncing off someone’s glasses makes their eyes invisible to the camera. Some people may break off their onboarding process halfway through the second run because they are unhappy about going through the same process again.

NFC, on the other hand, offers a secure, incorruptible link between an identity document’s chip and our technology.

This makes for quick and fault-free data transfer. ReadID automatically detects what phone model and identity document a potential customer uses, and adapts its animated guidance accordingly. Anyone can do it, and most of the time, in one go. Our customers have created conversion percentages of over 95%. How high is your conversion now? Is your supplier proud of realising 80% conversion? How much will you save if you get to 95%?

With NFC you are able to scale

In online situations, onboarding doesn’t happen in neatly ordered succession, nicely spread out over days and weeks. Identity verification requests can come in peaks that are difficult to predict. Some optical verification methods still require staff to validate exceptional cases by hand.

They simply cannot handle a sudden spike in requests, nor can you quickly grow your staff. Fully automated solutions can grow and shrink with demand, almost unlimited. ReadID has proved capable of effortlessly and flawlessly handling hundreds of thousands of scans per day.

In the age of the instant internet, slow processes and manual steps inevitably lead to losing potential clients and high costs.

NFC-FIRST, NOT NFC-ONLY

Global Coverage

More than 170 countries and regions currently issue passports and identity cards with chips, and this number is growing rapidly. Europe and North America are fully covered already, as are Australia and New Zealand, as well as most of South America. Many other countries are considering it, too.

epassports coverage map November 2023

But you want the remaining no-chip countries covered as well. That is why we use an NFC-first approach, not NFC-only. For the rare cases without chipped identity documents, ReadID also offers traditional optical verification through our partners and strong orchestration possibilities.

It may be less secure, and not as user-friendly, but fine as an alternative. You do not need to miss out on any opportunity, ever. So combine ReadID with your preferred backup solution, or have us orchestrate the combination if you really want 100% coverage.

Let’s talk about your challenge.

Are you interested in adopting ReadID within your own identity verification solution? Let’s talk, and see how our software fits within your bigger picture.

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