The ID Checking Guide You Didn’t Know You Needed
With the new advancements in modern tech, catching fakes in real-time can be tricky. But just as your team is getting quicker at identifying fake IDs, identity fraudsters are advancing their methods for obtaining and generating fakes that can bypass security measures. For that reason, we’ve created an ID checking guide to help you catch fraudsters in the act:
The Basic, Tell-Tale Signs of a Fake ID
Catching fakes can be easy if you know what to look for. But that’s assuming you have extensive knowledge of individual state’s identifiers. At the very minimum, most retailers, restaurants, and other establishments needing to know how to check an ID should verify the following:
Photo Match
Always make sure that the photo matches the person presenting it. One critical step in our ID checking guide is to observe whether the ears, eyebrows, facial bone structure, and other features are consistent between the ID picture and the presenter.
Confirm Information and Typeset
Each state’s license has different identifiers of validity. Understanding what those are and how to appropriately locate them is critical to finding fake IDs. For some IDs, you can feel the face-side of an ID to check for the perforation on the signature and/or date of birth. Other things to look for include a ghost image, duplicate image, and state seal. At minimum, you should check the expiration date and confirm the information on the ID, such as birthdate, with the individual.
UV and Laser Imagery
UV imagery, also known as blacklight imagery, is a security feature on all 50 state IDs. This is a laser engraved image that is only visible under a blacklight. Another common identifier is laser imagery. This can present differently on a state by state basis, but most can be spotted by holding the ID up to a light.
Why Traditional Methods Are Not Enough
As previously iterated, new technology has made it easy to pass tests visible to the naked eye. In fact, for some fake ID vendors, the ability to bypass these identifiers is the core selling point. After all, who is going to purchase a fake that doesn’t look real?
Online fraudsters and fake ID vendors mastered the art of producing fake IDs that can easily pass the UV light test and are tactically functional. The most common way that businesses have been combating this is with Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA). This form of verification uses astrological signs, date of birth, and state-specific questions to try and catch fraudsters in the act.
Unfortunately, KBA has become obsolete and ineffective in the last decade due to technological advancements in the ID theft business. So this begs the question: what can businesses do to protect themselves from increasingly accurate fakes?
How to Check IDs with Incredible Accuracy
To catch fakes nowadays you have to go beyond the traditional methods, trusting your naked eye is no longer an effective way to conduct business. To ensure you are catching fake IDs in the moment, the last step in our ID checking guide is adding additional technology to help you authenticate real IDs.
In fact, some fake IDs are so close to the real thing that even trained professionals can’t spot the difference. Intellicheck is a leading solution that provides greater than 99% accuracy.
Retailers, financial institutions and more can easily implement Intellicheck solutions into their point of sale or teller platform routine without any additional hardware to authenticate IDs. You can even deploy Intellicheck solutions for your business in mobile app form to easily identify fakes from your smartphone. This is ideal for smaller retailers, concert venues, bars, and smoke shops that rely on fast turnover to conduct business.
Once installed, bartenders, bouncers, call center agents, retailer clerks or tellers can quickly scan a buyer’s ID barcode and determine, in real-time, whether the ID is authentic.
Together We Can Stop Fraud
If you are a venue vendor, a retailer, or a bar owner, you are expected to stop minors from purchasing alcohol, tobacco or cannabis in order to protect your business from detrimental liability. If you are a financial institution, lender or retailer, you can avoid significant loss in both dollars and merchandise by effectively checking IDs. Intellicheck’s solutions enable all businesses to validate and authenticate IDs in real-time, helping you safeguard your business from the worst possible situations.
