NFC Verification

Today, almost every country issues electronic identity documents such as e-Passports, e- Driver’s licenses, and e-ID cards. These types of documents are widely used and considered to be the most secure. They help to securely identify the owner and provide protection against identity theft. Their key feature is an electronic RFID chip that holds data that can be read and verified with NFC-enabled smartphones.

NFC (near-field communication) verification is a reliable and secure method of identity proofing.

Electronic identity documents include biographic and biometric data—vital personal and biometric information, such as name, gender, photo, signature, or fingerprints that are cryptographically secured and signed with a certificate of the country of origin. All this makes counterfeiting NFC-enabled documents a much harder task.

Regula is on the cutting edge of NFC verification technology, and leverages both mobile NFC verification and complete server-side verification to additionally confirm the genuineness of a chip.

There are various types of electronic identity documents such as ePassports, national eID cards, eDLs (driver’s licenses), and electronic residence permits. All of them can be scanned and verified with NFC-enabled smartphones and specialized IDV software.

Data records in international electronic documents are standardized in accordance with ICAO 9303 and BSI Technical Guideline TR-03105 part 5.1 and 5.2. As for domestic electronic documents, data records can be done in accordance with the issuing authority guidelines, which are different from international ones.

Regula’s NFC-enabled verification technology enables authentication of diverse international and domestic identity documents with electronic RFID chips. It is fully compliant with ICAO 9303 standards, BSI Technical Guideline TR-03105 part 5.1 and 5.2, and supports ISO/IEC 14443-3 and ISO/IEC 14443-4 communication protocol standards.

In addition to ID verification, Regula Document Reader SDK enables NFC reading and verification of logical data structure for ePassports, eIDs, eDLs and eSign, where eSign is used in conjunction with other applications, such as eID, providing additional functionality to document verification.

Regula NFC verification is backed up by the world’s largest document template database, with over 14,000 templates of IDs issued in 251 countries and territories. This lets Regula know what data an electronic document should contain, where it is located, what data groups the RFID chip includes, what language it is in, whether the data is in the local language (e.g., the name, at the discretion of the issuing country) and transliterate it if needed, and even if a document should have an RFID chip or not and detect if a chip is absent or damaged.

Thus, when an electronic document is processed on a smartphone, the server can be an integral part of NFC verification. It immediately re-processes RFID mobile sessions running Passive, Active and/or Chip authentication in the backend, and ensures trustworthy and fraud-free results of NFC verification.

Also, the results of every NFC verification session are stored on a server, so it is possible to re-process them afterwards if required. All this is done strictly on the client's premises, and Regula gets no access to any data.