Document Verification: Nullifying the Old and New Ways of Document Fraud

Monetary damages caused by ID theft have become a significant issue for law authorities, businesses, and consumers. The advancements in technology are speeding up and so are the criminal activities along with it. Moreover, the reliance on online business has expanded, thus it is no surprise that identity thieves have also occupied the digital space. The cunning techniques put in effect by these criminals require robust identity and document verification services. These document authentication services ensure that the identity is not forged, stolen, or manipulated in any way. With their assistance, financial institutions and businesses can be sure of enhanced compliance, user experience, and eliminating chargebacks.

Traditional vs Modern Methods of Forgery

Forgery is used by fraudsters to replicate a real document’s information, for instance, a name, signature, or a picture. These forged documents are then used for undertaking fraudulent activities.

Old Methods:

Simple Forgery:

As the name suggests, it is the most amateur attempt at forgery. The criminal does not have to be adept in document forgery to commit this crime. This method involves casually writing something or forging a signature. The criminal does not have an authentic and official document and does not follow any official pattern. It is the most random attempt at forgery. Then, the criminal will aim to pass it as an original and authentic document claiming to be someone else.

Simulation Forgery:

This is also known as free-hand simulation. In this method, the criminal has someone else’s identity document. This requires a bit more guile than simply guessing someone’s signatures. The criminal will try to replicate the handwriting, signature, and different shapes on a document.

Tracing:

Tracing is another manual method of document forgery. This is a simple technique and it is surprising how many times the criminals have used it to trick the system into believing that the document is original. Among other techniques, light tables are used for tracing and imitating the credentials on a document.

The New Method:

Electronic Manipulation:

In the age of digitization, manual forgery techniques are no longer doing the trick for criminals. Thus, here comes electronic manipulation which includes the utilization of software like Photoshop to digitally manipulate documents. Here, the documents are copied or scanned and then altered. It is very difficult to detect this type of forgery with the naked eye.

Some Contemporary Techniques of Document Fraud

Following are the multiple techniques that are used by criminals to manipulate documents and take over the identity of someone.

Screenshots and Photocopies

Some verification systems accept photocopies and screenshots of original documents. But they are used for identity fraud for the document verification processes; these copies are not accepted. Criminals get their hands on an authentic document and make photocopies of it or take a screenshot of a digitally saved document. Then, they aim to present them as authentic documents in the verification process of documentation provided by the user.

Holograms

As quickly as new technology is invented, its applications get used for humanitarian assistance and abused for committing a crime at the same time. One of these technologies is a hologram which is a photo or a video. Criminals employ 2D and 3D holograms to replicate real-world entities to deceive the system in online document verification.

Damaged Documents

The problem with the physical documents is that they are prone to considerable wear and tear over time. So, it presents an opportunity for the criminals to use it as an excuse. They deliberately damage documents to make them vague and prone to misinterpretation. Then, when it is detected that their information is falsified, they lay the blame on the compromised documents.

Walkthrough of Online Document Authentication

In the digital document verification process, the customer is first required to provide answers to an information form on the organization’s website. Then, the user uploads an authentic identity document to the system or takes a picture of it in real-time. The system verifies whether the document is authentic. After that, the information is extracted from the document by the trained AI and ML models and matched with the information provided textually at the start of the process.