Document Authentication

The Document Authentication V1 module validates the authenticity of a submitted identity document by running a series of forensic checks against the document image. It determines whether the document is genuine or shows signs of forgery or reproduction, and returns the result as a risk level (low, medium, or high) that reflects how strictly the document was evaluated.

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Capabilities

The module returns four capabilities: three integer-based check failure counts and one overall authentication result.

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Check failure counts

The module categorises the individual forensic checks it runs into three severity tiers. For each tier, it counts how many checks failed. These counts explain the severity distribution of failures behind the overall authentication result, which helps you decide whether to reject, escalate to manual review, or accept with conditions.

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Number of significant checks failed

The number of high-severity authentication checks that failed. Significant checks test the most critical security features of a document, such as template structure, key security elements, and data consistency between the visual zone and machine-readable zone (MRZ). A failure in a significant check is a strong indicator of a forged, counterfeit, or fundamentally altered document. A value greater than 0 indicates serious authenticity concerns. Even a single significant failure typically warrants rejection or manual forensic review.

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Number of moderate checks failed

The number of medium-severity authentication checks that failed. Moderate checks test secondary security features and data consistency elements that contribute to overall document confidence but are less definitive than significant checks. Failures may indicate lower-quality forgeries, minor inconsistencies, or legitimate but unusual document variations. A small number of moderate failures may occur on legitimate documents, particularly older documents, documents from countries with fewer security features, or documents captured under poor imaging conditions. The count should be interpreted alongside the overall authentication result.

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Number of insignificant checks failed

The number of low-severity authentication checks that failed. Insignificant checks test minor features that have limited impact on the overall authenticity determination. Failures in these checks are common on legitimate documents and are unlikely to indicate fraud on their own. These failures are typically informational. They may be useful for audit purposes or for organisations with very strict acceptance criteria, but they rarely warrant rejection on their own.

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Document authentication result

This capability returns the overall outcome of the document’s authenticity checks. It uses the same risk-level model as V2, where the result code reflects the residual risk level after the document has been evaluated. The key concept: a document that passes under strict (high-sensitivity) checks carries low residual risk, while a document that passes under relaxed (low-sensitivity) checks carries higher residual risk. The result code names reflect this residual risk, not the sensitivity setting.

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Default outcomes

The outcome logic maps directly from the authentication result. Each result code produces a corresponding outcome. Unlike V2, which combines authentication and tamper detection results to determine the outcome, V1 uses only the single authentication result capability.