In the UK, employers can face fines of up to £20,000 for each illegal worker if they fail to properly conduct the necessary right to work checks or do not conduct them at all.
To avoid these penalties, companies must ensure that new hires have the proper legal documentation to work. This means that they have to collect the required documents that state the right to work of every individual and check their authenticity and validity.
Instead of doing this by hand and performing checks manually, more and more companies are turning towards digital technologies like Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) to streamline this process. These technologies help secure personal information and transactions, and confirm the identity of individuals, making sure they are who they claim to be.
But, what is IDVT and why is it a critical tool for the onboarding process? In this article, we will delve deeper into this emerging technology, and examine how it works, its applications, advantages, and potential drawbacks.
By the end of this article, you will have a clearer understanding of IDVT and how it can improve your digital pre-employment screening, right to work, and right to rent checks. Curious? Let’s begin!
What is Identity Document Validation Technology?
Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) is a method used to confirm the authenticity and validity of identity documents like passports, driver’s licenses, and ID cards through various means, such as document verification, NFC verification, and more.
It plays a crucial role for organizations that need to verify the identity of their potential employees or other individuals. IDVT serves as an automation tool for right to works checks, for instance, eliminating the need to check physical documents.
In the UK, it is required by law to conduct right to work, right to rent and DBS checks to ensure that people are legally allowed to work or live in the country. Therefore, to help carry out these identity checks, the UK Home Office has enabled employers and landlords to use certified digital IDVT services. To be certified, these IDVT services need to follow the guidelines set in the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, which has been updated on the 26th of January 2023.
So, let’s take a closer look at how IDVT works and its ability to detect the validity of identity documents.
How IDVT software works
An IDVT software uses various technologies such as Optical Character Recognition, NFC, and fraud detection to confirm the authenticity and validity of identity documents. With the software, employers can safely conduct remote right to work checks and landlords, right to rent checks.
Let’s dive into these techniques next!
Document verification:
Document verification is a technique used in IDVT to confirm the authenticity and validity of identity documents by comparing the information extracted from documents to the ones stored in databases.
To extract data from identity documents, document verification includes technologies like:
- Optical Character Recognition
- Document Fraud Detection
- NFC-based Identity Verification
Optical Character Recognition
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology enables IDVT software to extract text, including signatures, from identity documents such as passports, ID cards, and driver’s licenses, and convert the information into a useful format (PDF, Excel, JSON, etc.).
With OCR, it is no longer necessary to manually enter data into a computer or database, saving organizations valuable time and streamlining the onboarding process.
Document Fraud Detection
IDVT not only uses OCR technology to extract data from identity documents but also includes advanced features for detecting fraud enabled by Machine Learning algorithms.
One such feature is EXIF analysis, which examines the metadata embedded in an image to identify if it has been changed and by which software. Additionally, IDVT can also detect fraud through copy-move analysis, which detects if a portion of an image has been copied and pasted onto another image.
These techniques can detect subtle changes like altered text, image manipulation, or the use of a fake document, making IDVT an essential tool for preventing identity fraud in various industries, including finance, government, and healthcare.
NFC-based Identity Verification
The use of NFC (Near Field Communication) for identity verification is an efficient and secure method to streamline the onboarding process by reading encrypted data in the RFID chip of NFC-enabled identity documents.
The technology allows the retrieval of data from identity documents such as ID cards or passports to confirm their authenticity. This method is known for its safety as the data cannot be altered and is widely used to access users’ information and validate the document’s authenticity with remote onboarding applications.
To learn more about our NFC-based ID verification, watch the video below:
While comprehending how ID Validation Technology works is important, it’s also crucial to understand where it can be applied.
Applications of IDVT
As we’ve seen before, IDVT can have many applications to verify the authenticity of identity documents.
In the UK, Identity Validation Technology is mainly used for:
- Right to Work checks
- Right to Rent checks
- DBS pre-employment checks
Let’s take a closer look at these in more detail.
Right to Work checks
Right to work checks are used to verify if an individual has the legal right to work in a specific country. There are several documents that count as proof of right to work that a job applicant needs to provide to the employer at the beginning of the hiring process.
For instance, when seeking employment in the UK, a passport or other form of identification is required by law. Additionally, depending on the situation of the applicant, other documents like a permanent residence card, a registration or birth certificate, and more, can be asked to prove the holder is allowed to stay in the UK and is currently allowed to work.
IDVT streamlines this process, allowing a faster and more accurate verification of these identity documents, and helps companies comply with right to work laws like the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.
Right to Rent checks
These checks are similar to Right to Work checks but are specific to the rental sector. By law, landlords and letting agencies are required to perform right to rent checks on all tenants to ensure they are legally allowed to rent a property in the UK.
IDVT can be a helpful tool to speed up the confirmation of an individual’s right to rent by digitally verifying visas and identity documents like passports, ID cards, etc. .
This can help landlords or letting agencies prevent illegal immigrants from renting properties, complying with the Immigration Act 2014.
DBS pre-employment checks
DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks are used to confirm the criminal history of an individual and are needed for certain types of employment, such as those working with vulnerable groups.
To complete these checks, regulated under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and the Safeguarding Groups Act 2006, individuals must present valid identity documents, such as a passport, driving license, or birth certificate.
With the help of IDVT, employers can easily check these documents, making sure they match the right person and identify any criminal history.
As we’ve seen, IDVT can be adopted by employers and landlords to verify identity documents and ensure they match the correct individuals. But what are the pros and cons of using this technology?
Advantages and disadvantages of IDVT
Like any technology, there are benefits and drawbacks to using IDVT. This section will explore both the advantages and disadvantages of IDVT, providing a comprehensive overview of its possible impact on your business.
The benefits of using IDVT
There are several advantages to using IDVT, including:
- Faster onboarding – With IDVT, companies no longer have to manually check physical documents, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Instead, IDVT uses techniques such as OCR and facial recognition that make the onboarding process faster, verifying customers and employees more efficiently.
- Increased security – IDVT can detect counterfeit documents that may not be obvious to the human eye, providing higher security for organizations. Additionally, IDVT helps prevent fraudulent activities, such as identity theft or money laundering.
- Lower costs for staffing – Human verification of identity documents can be costly in terms of time and labor. Software using IDVT can automate the process of document authentication, reducing the need for additional staff or overtime hours to verify identities. Furthermore, this leads to cost savings associated with recruitment and staff training.
- Compliance – IDVT is a valuable tool to comply with various regulations and laws, like the Trust Framework that came into effect in 2022 in the UK. This can help organizations avoid penalties and fines, and maintain a good reputation and credibility.
Overall, Identity Document Validation Technology provides a range of benefits for companies like streamlining verification processes, enhancing security, and facilitating compliance. However, it also comes with its own set of drawbacks that must be considered.
The potential drawbacks of using IDVT
IDVT, while being very useful, is not perfect. It’s important to note its disadvantages, such as:
- Higher initial costs – The costs of implementing and maintaining this technology and its required equipment, like scanners, cameras, software, and servers, can be quite expensive. Thus, it can represent a barrier for some organizations, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which might have more limited budgets.
- Privacy concerns – IDVT raises concerns about personal data protection and the potential misuse of biometric data. Some people may feel uncomfortable remotely sharing personal information such as name, address, and identification numbers, or providing pictures of themselves for biometric verification.
- Inaccurate results – IDVT systems can sometimes produce false positives, which occur when the system incorrectly determines a document as invalid, rejecting genuine identity documents. This can happen due to the quality of the document, technical difficulties with the software, or errors made by the operator. Besides causing frustration, false positives can also lead to delays in processing and increased costs for the organization.
- Detection limitations – IDVT may have limitations in detecting identity documents from different countries or regions, some types of counterfeit documents, or certain biometric data. These limitations can create problems for organizations with a diverse customer base. Additionally, it can lead to delays, customer inconveniences, or security breaches if a counterfeit document is not detected.
With remote onboarding growing and new regulations/frameworks enforced, it is not a question of whether IDVT is necessary or not. While there are drawbacks, companies like Klippa can provide more than just IDVT, and address these challenges well.
Going beyond IDVT with Klippa
ID Validation Technology is becoming increasingly important in today’s digital world as it provides a faster, more efficient, and more secure way of verifying identity documents.
However, Klippa DocHorizon takes it a step further by providing a complete identity verification process, including biometric verification, selfie verification, and liveness detection, in addition to document validation.
With the help of technologies such as OCR, AI, and Machine Learning, our automated identity verification solution allows you to easily extract data from identity documents and verify identities.
Our ID verification software using IDVT offers the following features:
- Accurate ID document verification for fast extraction of information, detection of fraud and duplicates, and verification of data
- Facial recognition through a biometric self-scan or real-time liveness checks
- NFC-based identity verification to achieve 100% data accuracy
- Fast age verification to comply with regulations
- Cross-checking extracted data with internal or external databases using our OCR API
- Streamline the flow of your identity validation process (you can set restrictions for document types with our document classification models)
- Cross-matching the visual zone with MRZ (Machine Readable Zone)
- And more…
Klippa DocHorizon is a reliable, fast, and robust technology that offers accurate identity verification in seconds. Not only helps it with your right to work, right to rent, and DBS checks, but it can also streamline your CDD or KYC processes, eliminating human errors and the risk of fraud.
If you are curious about our solution that uses Identity Document Validation Technology and want to know more, don’t hesitate to contact our team of experts. You can also book a free online demo below.