Document Verification

In addition to providing identity verification and watchlist monitoring Synctera's verification solution includes document verification. In this guide, we'll dive into use cases and the document verification flow for your customers.

As discussed in the verification guide, Synctera recommends using document verification as a step-up verification method for customers that cannot be automatically verified using basic CIP information (name, address, dob, govenment ID).

Synctera has partnered with Socure to provide the ability to verify thousands of documents from over 100 countries to help verify a customer's identity. By capturing the front and back of the document as well as a live capture selfie, document verification can be used as step up verification to improve conversion rates on customers that would otherwise go into manual review using standard identity verification methods. It can also help to reduce risk by further ensuring the validity of the customer and their information.

See the API reference or follow this guide for more information about integrating document verification into your onboarding flow.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you have:

Socure SDKs

Socure provides SDKs for multiple platforms to simplify the integration of document verification into your application:

WebSDK
Android SDK
iOS SDK
React SDK

📘
If you would like build out your document verification flow using the Socure SDK, contact your Synctera sales representative.

Example: Using document verification as a step-up

Synctera recommends using document verification as a step-up for some verification failures. Generally, we recommend sending verifications that are flagged as REVIEW through Socure's document verification flow.

📘
Document verification increases conversion for customers that are flagged for review in their initial KYC verification.

In this example, we will create a customer that is flagged for REVIEW on initial verification. We will then initiate document verification to show how you can use Socure's document verification as a step-up verification method to decrease manual review time and increase conversion of customer.

Integration Steps

Create a personal customer
Create a KYC data collection disclosure
Verify the customer
Collect the customer's documents
Verify the customer using document verification

1. Create a personal customer

First we start by creating a record for our new customer. We'll use the POST /persons endpoint to create a person.

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $apikey" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  https://api.synctera.com/v0/persons \
  --data-binary '
  {
    "first_name": "Christopher",
    "middle_name": "James",
    "last_name": "Albertson",
    "dob": "1985-06-14",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "phone_number": "+16045551212",
    "ssn": "456-78-9999",
    "legal_address": {
      "address_line_1": "123 Main St.",
      "city": "Beverly Hills",
      "state": "CA",
      "postal_code": "99999",
      "country_code": "US"
    },
    "is_customer": true,
    "status": "ACTIVE"
  }'

For more information about creating and managing people consult the person guide.

2. Create a KYC data collection disclosure

Once we have our created customer, you will need to display a disclosure to your customer that you are collecting personal data that will be shared with a third-party for the purpose of verifying their identity. For this we use the disclosures resource.

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $apikey" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  https://api.synctera.com/v0/disclosures \
  --data-binary '
  {
    "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
    "type": "KYC_DATA_COLLECTION",
    "version": "1.0",
    "event_type": "ACKNOWLEDGED",
    "disclosure_date": "2022-03-17T17:04:34Z"
  }'

For more information about creating and managing disclosures consult the disclosure guide.

3. Verify the customer

Now that we have a customer, and consent to collect and share their data we can make a request to verify the customer.

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $apikey" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  https://api.synctera.com/v0/verifications/verify \
  --data-binary '
  {
    "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
    "customer_ip_address": "184.233.47.237",
    "customer_consent": true
  }'

📘
Consent must come directly from the customer.

This request will return a verification response similar to this response below:

{
  "verification_status": "REVIEW",
  "verifications": [
    {
      "id": "05e2ddf3-d172-450e-9cf3-7a34f76a414f",
      "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
      "verification_type": "IDENTITY",
      "result": "ACCEPTED",
      "details": [
         {
            "description": "Address cannot be resolved to the individual",
            "label": "Address",
            "result": "WARN",
            "vendor_code": "R705"
        },
        {
          "description": "Email address can be resolved to the individual",
          "label": "Email",
          "result": "PASS",
          "vendor_code": "I556"
        }
      ],
      "verification_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.91272Z",
      "creation_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z",
      "last_updated_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "a24a16a2-4711-4486-8049-787462c61ffc",
      "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
      "verification_type": "WATCHLIST",
      "result": "ACCEPTED",
      "details": [
        {
          "description": "Global Watchlist sources selected are not correlated with the input identifiers",
          "label": "Watchlist",
          "result": "PASS"
        }
      ],
      "verification_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.91272Z",
      "creation_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z",
      "last_updated_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z"
    }
  ]
}

Note the issue flagged in the IDENTITY verification object: Address cannot be resolved to the individual.

This warning results in the customer's verification status being marked as REVIEW. In the next section, we will initiate the document verification request which if successful will automatically resolve the issue previously flagged.

4. Collect the customer's documents

Currently, you must integrate with one of Socure's SDKs.

📘
If you would like build out your document verification flow using the Socure SDK, contact your Synctera sales representative.

Once you have uploaded the customer's documents you will receive a document_id which we will use in the next step.

5. Verify the customer using document verification

Using the document reference id returned from the Socure SDK, send a verification request, (like you did in step 3) this time including the document_id.

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $apikey" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  https://api.synctera.com/v0/verifications/verify \
  --data-binary '
  {
    "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
    "customer_ip_address": "184.233.47.237",
    "document_id": "1ab2c3de-fg45-6789-a01b-23c45678defg",
    "customer_consent": true
  }'

By providing a document_id, the verification request will perform a KYC verification of the individual using the documents provided to the Socure SDK.

{
  
  "verification_status": "ACCEPTED",
  "verifications": [
    {
      "id": "05e2ddf3-d172-450e-9cf3-7a34f76a414f",
      "person_id": "7ef75751-e372-4c12-9b02-b9e4b1faaac9",
      "verification_type": "DOCUMENT_VERIFICATION",
      "result": "ACCEPTED",
      "details": [
        {
          "description": "Minimum required information extracted from document Barcode",
          "label": "Document Verification",
          "result": "PASS",
          "vendor_code": "I831"
        },
        {
            "description": "Document image correlates with self-portrait",
            "label": "Document Verification",
            "result": "PASS",
            "vendor_code": "I836"
        },
        {
            "description": "Socure's document verification model recommends accepting the individual",
            "label": "Document Verification",
            "result": "PASS",
        }
      ],
      "verification_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.91272Z",
      "creation_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z",
      "last_updated_time": "2022-03-14T18:34:59.918188Z"
    }
  ]
}

This time we receive a DOCUMENT_VERIFICATION response containing details about the verification like: Document image correlates with self-portrait and Socure's document verification model recommends accepting the individual. In this example, by using document verification we automatically verified a customer that was initially flagged for manual review by collecting and verifying a government issued identity document from the customer.

Great! We have successfully created and verified a personal customer using document verification. You can now visit our account creation guide.