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The demand for OCR Technology increasing for ID Verification

  • Richard Marley
  • October 26, 2018
  • 5 minutes read
  • 3154
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ID verification is core to overall identity verification services that help business around the globe to authenticate their users and identity credential provided by these customers. Fraud prevention and online identity theft protection strategies of online companies rest upon reliable KYC verification that in turn rely on authentic ID verification. But most of the KYC industry has made it difficult to perform ID verification with multiple checks being performed in addition to a substantial amount of time being lost in manual data entry by end-users for their identity credentials. Not to mention, the amount of time spent on each verification not only reduces the client onboarding time but also makes it hard for companies to maintain a superior service standard. After all, what good is an ID verification service, that actually leads to the decline of service standards maintained by a certain company? OCR technology, thus, is considered an ideal alternative to otherwise laborious manual data entry process that precedes the identity verification process.

What is OCR Technology?

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. In a layman’s term, OCR is a technology that can identify and read the text from a printed document. Most of the advanced OCR technology solutions have the ability to even identify written characters from a hand-written note.

OCR Technology for ID verification

As you can imagine, ID verification services using OCR technology for reading the credentials from an official document can solve the issue of time-consuming ID verification process. But the complication to develop such a complex technology is also there. Shufti Pro, on the other hand, already has developed its KYC verification and ID verification services on Artificial Intelligence technology. It was easier for Shufti Pro to offer an identity verification solution based on OCR technology and we are calling it InstantCapture Solution. It enables our customers to perform identity verification and KYC verification of their own customers in a swift and hassle-free manner. But checks are also in place, to ensure that only the accurate information is forwarded by end-users for verification processing even after OCR technology has done its job.

InstantCapture – An Introduction

Shufti Pro offered its identity verification services with a turnaround time of 30-60 seconds and verification results being displayed in real-time. But in order to even reduce the turn-around time to virtually zero, OCR technology was integrated into the verification process of Shufti Pro, giving rise to a new solution – InstantCapture.

Available both in offsite as well as onsite verification mode, InstantCapture works either way. It means whether Shufti Pro collects personal information from end-user or if its customers have already collected it from end-users and just want to verify that information, InstantCapture works perfectly in both scenarios.

How does Identity verification work with OCR?

Normally an official identity document is required for the purpose of online identity verification. Shufti Pro’s Instant Capture solution has the ability to identify characters on an official document. So, once an end-user or a Shufti Pro customer forwards a document image to the verification system, OCR technology of Shufti Pro will identify each charactor on the official document and automatically fill the personal information, something that has to be done manually in case of an ordinary identity verification. So OCR technology makes ID verification to be performed not only quickly but also through a system that is trusted by a global client base of Shufti Pro.

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Even after Shufti Pro, auto-fills the personal information form with client information extracted from official ID, that personal information form is shown to end-user or Shufti Pro customer for validation. If there is any case of faulty extraction or some credential details missed by OCR, Shufti Pro customer or end-user can edit the personal information. Only the information form confirmed to be correct is forwarded for verification. So, it will be correct to say that OCR technology for ID verification is there to help Shufti Pro customers and end-users from spending even 30-60 seconds on identity verification services. For now, Shufti Pro is offering OCR based data extractions free of cost to its customers.

Benefits of OCR for ID Verification

Shufti Pro is a highly customized identity verification solution that is built to provide ease of use not only to its customers but end-users as well. So, it allows the choice of OCR technology for ID verification not only to its customers but end-users as well, only if opted by Shufti Pro customers.

OCR technology for ID verification makes the entire verification hands free with minimum input required from end-users. Similar data protection and privacy protocols are applicable to OCR technology and InstaCapture Solution as any other KYC service or AML solution from Shufti Pro. Although, usual identity verification services offer global language coverage even the InstantCapture Solution with OCR technology has broad language support with the ability to identify characters from a diverse list of languages that are commonly spoken in the world e.g. Italian, English, French and Spanish etc. Shufti Pro Back office will hold proof of verification for its customers to view the number of customers that used OCR technology for verification and the effective performance of InstantCapture solution in creating a reliable customer base for Shufti Pro clients.