ID verification Services – Why Paper IDs are inferior to Digital Cards?

ID verification services are at the forefront of making online marketplace transparent and ensuring that each transaction made on cyberspace is authentic. The credentials used for that transaction are accurate and belong to same person who made the transaction. Even if a transaction is not performed, Digital ID verification services ensure that identity of a person is fully verified before any service is utilised by that person. One of the important aspect of digital KYC offered by many service providers is the kind of IDs that are presented for verification. Mainly there are two kinds of IDs available on global scale for verification.

Paper IDs

You might think that the days of paper IDs are far behind us but there are many countries in the world that are still offering paper based identity cards to their citizens. India and Italy instantly pop up in mind as both of these offer paper IDs to their residents even in 21st century. The Italian authorities have forbidden their citizens to even laminate their cards. In their defense, even when paper IDs are issued by Indian and Italian authorities, these IDs are incorporated by some “security features” to make these Paper IDs hard to forge or forfeit. No doubt that fraud prevention and practices to stop scams become a joke with paper IDs.

In India, world’s 2nd most populous country and 6th largest economy, paper IDs are still prevalent called “Aadhar Cards”. Another form of identity verification in India are PAN cards (Permanent Account Number) that can be used to make payments. Both of these lack basic technology to avoid identity theft and financial frauds. PAN cards in India are especially hard to verify as they lack any magnetic strip at the back or swipe card-like feature.

According to a research, paper based IDs and paper documents put people on much more risk as compared to digital forms of IDs and credentials. This makes them prone to identity theft and financial thefts as well because these IDs can easily be duplicated and even the so called safety features present in them. Not to mention that a paper ID that is not machine readable becomes very hard to verify for online businesses. Not only are there risks involved of identity thefts and fraudulent activities but there is a chance that digital ID verification services might just not work on these outdated modes of identity documents.

Digital IDs

Digital IDs are for sure the most accurate medium to provide flawless digital ID verification services in modern age to stop scams and perform fraud prevention. These IDs are machine readable and the information available on these cards can be double checked by 2-D codes or MRZ codes available at the bottom of these digital IDs. Digital Identity verification becomes much easier with digital IDs that have additional layers of security that can also serve to verify the identity of the person. Hologram technology is best example of this fact as high end Digital Identity verification services like Shufti employ next-generation technologies to detect these holograms and ascertain the credibility of these IDs.

Digital Vs. Paper

Compliance needs and an urge for compatibility with modern age are the basic factors that drive this debate between digital and paper IDs. In a world of encrypted data and zillions of online businesses, digital IDs are definitely the way forward. Although there are only minor number of countries offering paper IDs but the online businesses need to make solid business strategies for these countries. Digital KYC is also deemed to be affected by the digital vs. paper debate. In a time where ID verification services are provided with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning protocols, users with paper IDs have started to become irrelevant with passage of time. Many service providers might try to accommodate such countries where paper IDs are still coin of the reign but it will create unmanageable problems ranging from greater risks to down right falsified customer data.

Solution for ID Verification Services

Shufti has sorted out a solution for its customers who don’t want to register clients with paper IDs. A Country Restrict Feature is available that enables our customers to completely restrict access of their services for countries that are issuing paper IDs to their citizens or non-magnetic PAN cards. It is a much more effective technique as compared to geo-tagging that only restricts access of IP addresses, a practice that can easily be circumvented by Virtual Private Networks, otherwise known as VPNs. So Shufti helps in fraud prevention and provides full proof digital identity verification services. Digital KYC at its best powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning practices.

So now because of Shufti, you can once and for all get rid of menace of Paper IDs and mitigate the risk of scams that is posed by developing a safeguard solution that has the full ability to ensure validity of Digital IDs.

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