FaceTec’s ‘UR Codes’ Offer Transformative Potential—for Free

FaceTec has launched a new identity verification solution that leverages biometrics together with QR codes, and could have a transformative impact across a number of sectors.

Its UR Codes are essentially QR codes that encode detailed biometric data, and tie it directly to biographic data that has been verified by an issuing authority. A scan of the code, paired with a live scan of the code-holder’s face, can irrefutably determine that the biographic data belongs to the person holding the UR Code.

Biometric Data In Print

To take one example of how this would operate in practice, a UR Code could be embedded in someone’s mobile driver’s license. It stores digitally signed biometric and biographic data that was originally collected by the holder’s Department of Motor Vehicles—the issuing authority of the identity credential. A police officer needing to verify the user’s identity can scan the QR code and scan the user’s face using a mobile device.

In so doing, FaceTec’s software establishes a live, 3D FaceMap that can be compared to the identity data stored in the UR Code. A match means that the user is who they claim to be, almost without question.

And, like any other QR code, the UR Code does not need to be presented in a mobile – or even digital – format. It could be printed on a paper business card, and still retain the encoded biometric and biographic information needed for identity verification. Likewise with respect to credit cards, diplomas, and even voter ballots, among other possible application areas.

To ensure that UR Codes can be widely used right out of the gate, FaceTec is offering standalone verification software, in addition to including it in its broader identity verification platform. FaceTec says UR Codes will remain free to encode for all government identity issuers, schools, non-profits, humanitarian organizations, and NGOs, with an evergreen license extending into perpetuity.

Biometric Binding In Action

The UR Code solution offers a vivid illustration of the concept of “biometric binding” that FaceTec SVP Jay Meier has discussed in recent episodes of the ID Talk podcast and elsewhere. Meier posits that conventional identity verification systems have a fundamental flaw in their reliance on identity documents that can be forged and on mobile devices that do not necessarily belong to their rightful owners.

As he has pointed out, once a thief has gained access to someone else’s smartphone, he can re-register his own biometrics for on-device authentication. A third party who relies on that device’s biometric authentication cannot be sure of the identity of the device owner, only that the device’s authentication systems accept that person’s biometrics.

The solution to this issue is to bind a credential holder’s biometric data directly to the biographic information associated with that credential. A UR Code does that, checking the encoded information directly against the biometrics of the live person holding it, with no need for a middleman.

“UR Codes validate and verify the identity and the owner, in virtual real-time, without having to ‘phone home’,” explains Meier. “They provide portability, privacy and efficiency of remote identity verification that has not existed before.”

Advanced Security Under the Hood

While this architecture is conceptually sound with respect to biometric binding, it also employs sophisticated security mechanisms under the hood. Each UR Code contains 72 bytes of digitally signed face feature vector data that FaceTec says cannot be reverse engineered into a coherent face image. The digitally signed, encrypted data is tamper-proof, and it is never sent to FaceTec, nor is any PII.

On the face-matching side of things, FaceTec’s technology offers a one-in-two million False Acceptance Rate at a False Rejection Rate of less than one percent. FaceTec’s biometric and liveness detection technology is backed up by the company’s unique Spoof Bounty Program, which has offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in rewards to would-be hackers, and hasn’t had to pay a cent in years.

FaceTec is offering online demos of its UR Code encoder and its UR Code verification system. Its UR Code system is currently patent-pending.

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September 4, 2024 – by Alex Perala