SmartSearch, the UK anti-money laundering firm, has launched ‘the most advanced document checking verification system on the market’, which uses facial recognition to identify forged ID documents.

The new SmartDoc tool is designed to help businesses in the property, legal and financial service sectors identify fake ID documents, including photographs, passports, driving licences and work permits.

It combines the latest document authentication technology and biometric verification and liveness detection techniques to provide an accurate picture of the customer, without the need for face-to-face interaction.

John Dobson, CEO at SmartSearch, says: “We have built a reputation over the past 10 years for our market-leading digital verification solution, which is by far the most effective way to carry out anti-money laundering and know your customer checks. But we have launched SmartDoc to run alongside that as another weapon in the armoury for those businesses which feel the need to carry out document verification as part of their customer due diligence.

“The lack of face-to-face interactions caused by lockdown opened a window for criminals to attempt to deceive, and despite restrictions being relaxed, this wave of fraud has not stopped. SmartDoc will ensure regulated businesses can securely authenticate customer identities, preventing fraud and allowing them to remain compliant with AML legislation.”

SmartSearch‘s SmartDoc service combines machine-learning interrogation and an optical character recognition algorithmic check on the ID document machine readable zone, verifying whether the document is genuine and unaltered, with a full data integration to identify document tampering.

Where necessary, it also uses visual scrutiny by a border security trained ID document expert, who will also examine every aspect to check security features found in genuine documents, as well as key indicators of potential forgery.

In addition, it provides a pass-fail result and also screens the customer against politically exposed persons and sanctions lists.