South Korea’s HectoData has added passport recognition to its document-reading services and launched liveness detection and Face Match APIs for remote identity verification. Businesses can combine the services to read a passport, check that a real person is present and compare that person’s face with the document photograph.
Optical character recognition, or OCR, converts text in an image or scanned document into data that software can process. HectoData’s passport service reads the machine-readable zone, the standardized lines containing identity and document information. It also checks the zone’s check digits, which help identify errors in the captured passport data.
The addition brings the company’s identity-document OCR support to four types: resident registration cards, foreign resident registration cards, driver’s licenses and passports. Its wider document-reading service covers corporate registry extracts, corporate seal certificates and business registration certificates for individuals and companies.
The two facial services perform different checks. Liveness detection assesses whether the capture contains an actual person rather than a photograph or screen. Face Match compares the captured face with the portrait in a passport or another identity document to assess whether they belong to the same person.
HectoData is targeting financial services, commerce businesses and platforms that need to identify international users during registration or other remote processes. The company says customers can connect the services without building a separate OCR engine. It is offering the expanded services free for the first month.
Integration runs through the company’s developer center using application programming interfaces, or APIs. AI-generated example code gives developers a starting point for connecting the services to their own environments. The new authentication technology was developed with H.AI, Hecto Group’s dedicated artificial intelligence organization.
Other providers have been extending remote verification in the region. Jumio brought its selfie.DONE reusable identity service to Asia-Pacific, using a fresh selfie to check previously enrolled users while retaining a document-verification route when a match or risk assessment requires it.
South Korea has also set out an optional facial-verification process for mobile sign-ups within its anti-fraud program. The policy includes alternative methods using a government mobile ID application and identity certificates, preserving options for users who do not choose facial recognition.
Sources: Hecto Group, EBN
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
