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This guide shows you how to confirm that the customer presenting an identity document is the person shown on it. You build a Hosted journey from three document modules and a facematch module, invite one customer by email or text message, and then review the result in Investigation. You don’t write any code or call the API. By the end of this guide, you can see whether your customer’s selfie matches the portrait on their document. You can also see the decision that the GBG Go platform reached.
The Invite a customer action is only available for published Hosted journeys. If your journey collects information before it starts, then the action is unavailable. See When the invite action is unavailable.

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Before you begin

Ensure you have the following:
  • A GBG Go platform account with a customer admin role. This role lets you review the result in Investigation. If you don’t have this role, then contact your GBG account manager.
  • The Document Classification, Document Extraction, Document Authentication, and Facematch Verification modules enabled in your contract.
  • A licence and credentials for the User Invite module set up for your organisation.
  • An identity document that carries a portrait photograph, such as a passport or driving licence.
  • An email address or mobile number that you can receive the invite on, so that you can complete the journey as your customer.

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Why the journey needs document modules

Facematch compares two images. The first is the selfie your customer takes during the journey. The second is the anchor image, which is the portrait photograph taken from their identity document. The Document Classification module produces the anchor image. It identifies the document and extracts the portrait from it, so facematch has something to compare the selfie against. Without a document module ahead of it, facematch has no anchor image and can’t run. This is why the journey verifies a document first and matches the face second.
A journey flow showing Document Classification, Document Extraction, Document Authentication, and Facematch Verification between the start and end of journey nodes

The three document modules followed by Facematch Verification in a Hosted journey

This guide uses the V2 variants of the three document modules. The V1 variants of these modules are not available in v2. See V1 to v2 migration guide.

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Step 1: Create a Hosted journey

  1. Click on the Create a new journey list.
  2. Select API + hosted (latest). This opens the Journey builder, allowing you to design Hosted journey workflows.
  3. Click the edit icon on the journey name at the top of the editor.
  4. Enter a meaningful name, for example, “Biometric Verification - New Customers.”
  5. Click outside the name field to save it.

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Step 2: Add the document modules

Add the three document modules in order. You select a variant as part of adding each module. These are the same three modules, in the same order, as the Identity document verification guide.
  1. Go to Browse and add modules in the right sidebar.
  2. Use the search bar to find Document Classification.
  3. Click the module. This opens the module configuration panel, which lists the available variants.
  4. Select the Document Classification V2 variant.
  5. Click Add to journey to insert the module into the flow.
  6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the remaining two modules, in this order:

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Step 3: Select a facematch variant

You select a variant as part of adding the module. Both variants compare the same two images, but they report the result differently.
  1. Go to Browse and add modules in the right sidebar.
  2. Use the search bar to find Facematch Verification.
  3. Click the module. This opens the module configuration panel, which lists the available variants.
  4. Select one of the following variants:
  5. Click Add to journey to insert the module into the flow.
This guide uses Facematch Verification - NIST. It reaches a definitive result on your behalf, so you can review a clear match or no-match outcome without configuring thresholds first. Your journey now runs classification, extraction, and authentication, and then compares the face, as shown in the previous image.
Modules and variants marked with an orange warning icon require activation by the GBG team. If a variant you need is marked, then contact your account manager to enable it for your organisation.
To compare the variants in detail, see Facematch Verification.

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Step 4: Review the facematch outcomes

The module arrives pre-configured with default outcomes, so you don’t need to configure anything before you publish. To review the outcomes:
  1. Click the Facematch Verification module inside the Journey builder to open its configuration panel.
  2. Click Configure outcomes. The outcomes and their rules appear.
  3. Review the following outcomes:
  4. Click Close to apply your configuration.
Facematch Verification - NIST also returns a similarity score from 0 to 100. A score above 50 produces a Match, and a score of 50 or below produces a No Match.
A No Match result doesn’t always mean your customer isn’t the document holder. A poor-quality document portrait produces the same result. Route a No Match to a manual review rather than to an automatic rejection, so that a reviewer can compare the two images.
To route each outcome to a different path, add an Evaluation node to your journey. To learn more, see Set up evaluation and How to configure module outcomes in Go.

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Step 5: Publish the journey

Click Publish to Preview in the Journey builder. GBG Go displays a confirmation message. Next, click Dashboard to see:
  • Environment (Preview)
  • Version number
  • Resource ID
  • Last published
  • Actions list
Your journey is now available for testing in the preview environment.

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Step 6: Invite your customer

  1. Click the Actions list.
  2. Click Invite a customer. A dialog box appears.
    Invite a customer dialog box

    Invite a customer dialog box

  3. Select the options for your use case, and then enter an email address, a mobile number, or both. The dialog box contains the following options: The GBG Go platform presets the region and environment based on the journey that you selected. Select Preview while you test the journey. Change the region only if your organisation runs journeys in more than one region, because the region controls where your customer’s data is processed and stored.
  4. Click Invite. A message appears at the top right of the screen confirming that the invite started.
An invite is valid for one customer. By default it expires after seven days, and your customer can return to the journey if they close it before they finish. To change either default, see Link settings.

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Step 7: Complete the journey as your customer

Your customer receives a verification link by email or text message.
  1. Open the link from the invite.
  2. Photograph your identity document when the journey asks for it. Capture both sides if the document is double-sided.
  3. Take a selfie when the journey asks for it.
  4. Submit the images.
Watch this demo to see the journey as your customer experiences it. The GBG Go platform classifies the document, extracts its data, and checks whether it is genuine. It then compares your selfie against the portrait taken from the document.
Capture the selfie in even, front-on light, with your whole face visible and nothing covering it. Remove sunglasses and hats. Facial hair, glasses, and a significant age gap between the document photograph and the selfie can all lower the similarity score without any fraud being involved.

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Step 8: Review the verification result

Results are available in Investigation once your customer completes the journey.
  1. Click Investigation on the left navigation menu. The Investigation dashboard opens.
  2. Select the environment that you sent the invite to. If you are testing, then click the Preview Environment tab.
  3. Select the region that you sent the invite to, using the region list in the top-right corner.
  4. Find your customer’s session in the list. If the list is long, then click Add Filter to search by name or email address.
  5. Click the session ID. The session details page opens on the Processing tab.
  6. Find the Facematch Verification module in the list. The outcome appears on the right of the module name, for example, Success.
  7. Click the arrow on the module row to expand it. The module shows the rule it evaluated, and whether that rule returned true or false. A Facematch Result of Match returning True means the selfie matched the anchor image that Document Classification supplied.
  8. Click More details to drill into the module on its own page. Review the facematch detail on the following tabs:
Session details for Facematch Verification - NIST showing a Facematch Result of Match returning True, with a Success outcome

A facematch that returned a Success outcome

You have now confirmed that your customer is the person shown on their identity document, and reviewed the result.
Review the document modules alongside the facematch result. A facematch that fails after a Document NOT Classified result usually points to a poor document photograph rather than a mismatched face, because a poorly captured document yields a poor anchor image.

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Next steps