Is Your Organization Ready To Deal With AI-Generated Fake IDs?

Key Highlights:

AI tools make it easier for fraudsters to create highly realistic fake IDs, posing serious challenges for identity verification systems.
AI-generated fake IDs can lead to identity theft, financial losses, regulatory penalties for KYC/AML non-compliance, and reputational damage.
Platforms like OnlyFake enable the creation of convincing fake IDs at low cost, making it crucial for organizations to update and strengthen their security protocols.
Implement advanced security measures like liveness detection, multi-layer verification checks, and AI-powered document fraud detection to mitigate risks.

Democratization of Artificial Intelligence has surely made our lives easier. But it has also become an exploit for cybercriminals to conduct malicious activities.

Creating a convincing fake ID using AI is easier than ever. Since the technology is getting sophisticated, this ID can deceive identity verification systems and access a banking account or computer system.

Identity fraud detection and document forgery remain some of the significant challenges organizations face. In fact, according to a recent analysis, ID fraud is one of the top fraud types banks and financial service providers deal with—expected to account for 50% of all bank-reported fraud types, from 45% of all major adverse contributions made in 2023.

This calls for making verification systems more stringent and secure to detect AI-driven fraud. This article dives deep into understanding AI-generated fake IDs, their risks, and solutions to stop them from harming your organization.

What Are AI-generated Fake IDs?

AI-generated fake IDs are digitally created identification documents using Artificial Intelligence platforms, especially those involving generative AI models, such as deep learning algorithms or Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs).

These AI models create highly realistic fake documents with personal information, mimicking an individual’s legitimate government-issued ID, such as an Aadhar card, passport, or driving license.

The Emergence of OnlyFake: Bane For Identity Verification Systems

Identity fraud has taken a completely new form with the advent of AI and AI-based tools.

One such tool and an underground network, OnlyFake, exposed by Joseph Coxx of 404 Media in early February this year, is a threat to security systems. This platform uses neural networks to create realistic-looking images of fake IDs and documents only for $15.

Source: 404 Media

The company conducted its own test with OnlyFake, wherein the tool generated a convincing California driver’s license with all relevant information, such as name, address, expiration date, signature, and biographical location.

Instead of painstakingly creating a fake ID manually, which requires exceptional skills, expertise, and time, cybercriminals can use it to create seemingly real fake IDs, which can manipulate and bypass online verification systems.

What Are The Risks Of AI-generated Fake IDs For Organizations?

Fake IDs pose significant threats to organizations relying on identity document verification systems to ensure security and data integrity.

Fake IDs increase risks of identity theft and compromised security. Fraudsters using fake IDs can bypass secure networks and databases to gain access to sensitive and financial information. They can also use fake IDs to apply for loans or create bank accounts—leading to major financial losses.
Organizations need to meet KYC protocols and confirm users’ identities. If an AI-generated fake ID slips through the verification and detection process, organizations can face hefty regulatory fines, penalties, or sanctions for failing to comply with KYC and AML requirements .
Fake IDs make banks and organizations vulnerable to attacks and data breaches—damaging a brand’s image and reputation, which can lead to customer distrust and dissatisfaction.

Besides these risks, AI-generated fake IDs also undermine banks’ and organizations’ trust in remote workplaces, employees, and contractors that rely on digital collaboration.

How To Counter AI-generated Fake IDs And Deepfakes?

Combating AI-generated fake IDs and preventing them from harming your organization is critical to avoid the aforementioned risks and ensure consistent operations. You can perform manual checks and look for signs like blurred areas and corners, irregular or incomplete text, use of stock backgrounds, distorted or missing holograms, missing machine scannable code, or missing state seals on driving licenses. However, manual intervention is time-consuming and can still deceive the checker.

Here are a few more sophisticated ways to counter fake ID risks:

1. Prohibit uploading manual IDs and documents

Manual photo or document upload allows users to upload the saved documents, making it easier for fraudsters to use pre-generated deepfakes or fake IDs.

Hence, making users upload a live photo of their ID or use their phone camera to snap their ID prevents the risk of digital fake IDs.

2. Enforce multiple-layer verification checks

Strengthening your bank’s ai identity verification process by integrating multiple verification and authentication checks is crucial.

You can enforce checks like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), liveness checks, and fraud detection signals through Software Development Kit (SDK) capabilities to curb the risks of AI-generated fake IDs.

3. Perform liveness checks

Liveness checks prove to be highly beneficial in identifying risks of fraudulent attempts and cyberattacks.

It helps ensure the authenticity of an uploaded document or ID by making the user upload their live photo or go through facial recognition, which then ensures that the uploaded ID is from a live human present during the verification process.

Passive Face Liveness Detection - Arya AI

Distinguishes between a live image and a spoof artifact to minimize identity theft and frauds

Arya AI

4. Front and back data matching

Several digital verification systems use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to check the user ID’s front data against the individual’s records.

However, investing in an AI-powered system that also matches the ID’s data in the front with the barcode at the back of the ID provides a much more sophisticated solution to find anomalies and instances of fake and fraudulent documents.

How Can Arya AI Help Combat AI-generated Fake IDs?

Arya AI provides an extensive suite of AI-powered tools that can be integrated seamlessly with identity verification checks and eliminate risks of fake IDs.

Some of these APIs are:

Document fraud detection analyzes documents and IDs, such as passports, driving licenses, invoices, and more, to distinguish between a tampered and authentic image and find inconsistencies and anomalies indicating fraud.
Passive face liveness detection offers real-time detection of fake images by distinguishing between a live user’s image and a digital or printed image to determine whether the user is present live during the photo capture.
Deepfake detection uses advanced deep learning techniques to distinguish genuine content from manipulated content or media, like images and video, in identity verification.

All of our apps are reliable and secure and come with high accuracy rates and no coding requirement. Thus, you can seamlessly integrate these within your systems for efficient identity verification.

Conclusion

Fraudsters and cybercriminals continue to exploit evolving technologies like AI to create manipulative and convincing fake IDs and gain access to sensitive business information.

However, you can overcome and combat these challenges pertaining to deepfakes and fake IDs by following the best practices mentioned above.

If you’re looking for a hassle-free and reliable solution to strengthen your bank’s identity verification process, make sure to check out our comprehensive suite of APIs at Arya AI to protect your business from financial and reputational losses.