DHS S&T testing provides opportunity to examine and improve mobile document verification

The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate recently completed what it calls its “Remote Identity Validation Technology Demonstration.” This event consisted of the testing of products that attempt to verify documents submitted via mobile technology.

With government and industry making the shift to virtual operation, the average person can now discard the time-honored practice of walking into a government office, bank or organization to present documents proving their identity. Using any smartphone, a selfie, driver’s license or any copy of any official document can be transferred digitally without hours of waiting. With the convenience of digital transmissions comes the exploitation of bad actors and professional fraudsters who can potentially rake in millions of dollars pretending to be someone else. This ongoing threat creates a need, not just for identity security in the most primitive manner, but unprecedented sophisticated measures to prove the legitimacy of those documents and photos.

“We’ve seen a lot of technologies come into the marketplace where we can help verify who people are online,” Arun Vermury, senior advisor for biometrics and identity at the DHS S&T Directorate, told Federal News Network’s Federal Monthly Insights — Identity Security. “We’re trying to figure out a few things, like is the document real? Is the person the real person? And does the person match the identity document?”

Testing and results

In testing that was conducted at a Maryland laboratory, DHS S&T set certain technology parameters for evaluation. The first: document authentication. The challenge presented was increasingly sophisticated fake documents that are nearly indistinguishable when evaluated in person. This is further exacerbated by the wear and tear of genuine documents that can cause them to appear suspicious. The second parameter was presentation attack detection, the test to evaluate whether systems can detect when someone uses physical items to impersonate another person to manipulate a selfie capture. The third parameter was selfie-to-document matching.

To conduct the testing, DHS S&T worked with Homeland Security Investigations’ forensic lab to get 1,200 authentic fraudulent documents for the testing. These were high-quality replications of official documents that mirror those being produced by criminal entities. Engineers created fake images to test how well they could imitate a real person, like masks and photo cutouts or holding photos in front of camera screens. More than 50 products from more than 30 companies were tested as part of the demonstration.

Vermury said that the contributions show the significant industry investment in verification technology, and their eagerness to participate. The Transportation Security Administration now accepts mobile driver’s licenses at airport checkpoints, and more than 20 states are issuing digital credentials. Other agencies including Customs and Border Protection are also exploring implementation at entry points.

“One of the challenges with online transactions is people are not necessarily deterred, like, if I am a bad actor and I make a fraudulent transaction online, if I’m sitting in another part of the world, it’s really hard for you to do something about it, right? And I can go ahead and try a thousand more times that day, versus me trying to go into a bank a thousand times a day,” Vermury told The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton.

Technologies tested included those that operate off a single photograph, and those that required participants to record a short video that was used to tell whether a person was real or from a recorded video.

During the testing process, however, DHS Science and Technology found gaps between industry claims and the performance of the technology being tested, proving the need for continued independent evaluation, and rigorous and unbiased testing. Tests revealed a lag in identifying fraudulent identifications between still photos and videos. While videos have more information, still photos offered the best results.

Some of the results remain under wraps to deter fraudsters, but engineers found that document authentication or document validation did not work particularly well. It was difficult to distinguish between real and fraudulent documents. Selfie-to-document matching performed the best across the board, and machine learning models showed great promise in detecting issues with small photo presentation.

Collaboration and the future of testing

DHS is also collaborating with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide standards around facial recognition technology evaluation. The General Services Administration and other agencies are also providing independent evaluations, a standardization of effort and development of best practices. Other countries have also joined the effort, and the forming of international cooperation initiatives has begun.

“What we realize is a lot of people really underappreciate how important identity is across the board, whether you’re crossing a border, boarding a plane, applying for government services or benefits, opening of a bank account. A lot of it comes back down to who are you, and kind of assessing that level of trust,” Vermury said.

As bad actors get more sophisticated, and the threats posed by fraud increase, this testing will eventually become even more routine. The experts contend that there is no single solution for complete security. The battle between innovation and fraud will continue to escalate.

“An example of something we didn’t do, but we’re very interested in exploring is what we’re calling digital video injection attacks … using things like face-swapping software or other generative AI software, where a person might be on screen, but they have a virtual camera or something else configured to change their face appearance to look like someone else,” Vermury said.

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