Veridos and Prismade Labs Collaborate to Provide Interactive Security for Identity Documents

In June 2019, identity solutions provider Veridos entered into an exclusive joint venture with Prismade Labs GmbH to provide identity credentials that incorporate Prismade printed electronics technology into Veridos ID cards. The identity cards will be digitally marked, which enables interaction with smartphones without the prerequisite of a contactless Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, Near-Field Communication (NFC), or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology through the use of an electronic identification tag. Known as edding code, the invisible ink pattern printed onto product tags can be identified by smartphones. You place the tag on the smartphone and swipe your finger over it to activate your phone’s touchscreen via conductive ink on the tag. With a growing global trend in mobile identity companions to physical documents, this technology could find a place in government-issued citizen credentials in regions with high smartphone penetration.

Earlier this year, Veridos had already announced its new E.U.-funded research project Detecting Document frauD and iDentity on the fly (D4Fly), which sets out an objective to streamline the border crossing process for travelers and reduce the risk of fraud when verifying documentation. The multifaceted project incorporates a number of solutions, including 3D facial recognition, utilizing smartphones as a means of identification, forgery detection, and distributed ledger technology.

As part of the project, integrated printed electronics have become part of Veridos identity documents, providing a means for documents to be verified via smartphone and eliminating the need for specialized equipment and readers that would have been involved in older credential form factors. The manufacturing process involves a near-invisible adhesive film being printed on the document and, when the document holder gets notified via email or SMS that they are required to verify their document, a link opens an app or a web page on their mobile browser. The document holder then places their document on their smartphone’s screen and swipes their finger across it, causing the information embedded in the ink to react to the swiping motion and confirm the document’s validity. The access event is then logged in the authenticator's back-end system. This enables the document verification process to be conducted by officers with minimal training, thereby streamlining the process and reducing barriers to digital verification as well as integrating the process with smartphones, which maintain significant penetration rates in developed nations.

On July 25, 2019, it was announced the Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) of Mexico had awarded Veridos a contract to issue over 74 million biometric voter ID cards for the country over a five-year period. With the objective of increasing document and national security and integrity as well as simplifying the electoral process, Veridos will utilize a personalization site with the aim of producing over 90,000 cards a day. Fourteen preprinted physical security features will be used as well as biometric information stored on two encrypted QR codes.

Another feature of the document is a printed interactive electronic element to allow citizens to prove their identities in a more streamlined and secure environment. The result will be an increase in security and legitimacy for elections in Mexico and another ID form factor for citizens of Mexico to interact with their government. Furthermore, this program follows a noticeable trend in Latin America of providing mobile interaction with citizen ID credentials. With Brazil pioneering a mobile drivers license companion alongside the physical document, the printed electronics within the Mexican voter card will provide another option for solutions providers to incorporate mobile as a form factor within credential programs.

Mobile identities are already becoming prevalent within the government ID market, especially in regions with significant smartphone penetration, due to citizens’ familiarity with the device and the additional functionality granted by technologies such as biometrics and NFC alongside secure storage capabilities on a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) or Secure Element (SE). ABI Research predicts the number of mobile identities worldwide to exceed 417 million by 2024, as stated in Mobile Identities and Derived Credentials (MD-MID-101).

Mexico’s venture into the mobile identities market reinforces the identifiable trend in the utilization of mobile as a derived companion of physical credentials. Governments are now looking toward technology and digitization to bring new levels of automation and efficiency to government-related services and improve the Government-to-Citizen (G2C) connection. Veridos and other vendors, including Gemalto and IDEMIA, are looking toward mobile identities as a next-generation revenue opportunity, expanding product portfolios’ focus from physical credential supplies to identity packages that encompass physical and digital solutions. The government ID market is very fragmented, with each country having individual programs, standards, and requirements for physical documentation that will also apply to any derived mobile companion, so differentiation between identity verification technologies will ultimately define the types of projects that vendors can target.