Solution to authenticate and read ID documents using mobile devices at point of origin in real-time, eliminating manual handling and providing better, more secure services.

Project Information

ID_MOBILE

Grant agreement ID: 662634

DOI

10.3030/662634

Project closed

EC signature date 28 February 2015

Start date 1 February 2015

End date 30 April 2015

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ICAR VISION SYSTEMS S.L.
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ID_MOBILE (Solution to authenticate and read ID documents using mobile devices at point of origin in real-time, eliminating manual handling and providing better, more secure services.)

Reporting period: 2015-02-01 to 2015-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ICAR VISION (http://ICARvision.com/fraud-proof/en) - from now on, ICAR - is an ICT company settled in Barcelona (Spain) and founded in 2002 as a spin-off of UAB’s Computer Vision Centre (http://www.cvc.uab.es/). Our main aim is to develop ICT solutions for the identity fraud prevention and the automatic identification of the customer. During H2020 SME Instrument Phase 1 (GA nº 662634) ICAR has developed a feasibility study in order to assess the viability of its technological solution, ID_Mobile, in the current market. The main output of this Phase 1 is the document “ID_Mobile Feasibility Study”, summarized in the present Report.

ID_Mobile is an automatic service that authenticates customer identification in real time. The solution identifies extracts and verifies all the ID documents information from tablets or smartphones with the aim of providing first-class services and safer real-time online transactions. The target sectors of the solution are the finance sector (Commercial Banks and Consumer Credit Entities), hospitality and ICT.

ID_Mobile gives an answer to current problems:
- The number of reported cases of stolen identity and use of false documentation in the EU has grown apace with the advent of internet and wireless technologies, causing losses of up to €500 billion to European companies and €20 billion to EU individuals, according to a report commissioned by the European Commission in 2012 to study this alarming trend (http://ec.europa.eu/anti_fraud/documents/reports-commission/2012/pif_report_2012_en.pdf). More than ever, the need to validate customer identity is critical for business and institutions, but not at the price of generating negative customer experiences (queues, slow processing, delayed confirmation, etc.).
- Consumers are increasingly using the smartphone to improve everyday life experience, like shopping or booking services. The reality for the entities is that 60% of users leave the online purchase process because they find too many steps in the check-out.
ID_Mobile ensure that the customers will have a fast and positive experience while providing a sales higher conversion, reducing operating costs and the losses generated from identity fraud.

Furthermore, the ability to immediately verify documents and detect fraud has the potential to change the way business is done and bringing new business models for contract-based service providers like financial services, insurers, car rentals and other, as well as travel and leisure, e-commerce, money transfer and more.

Therefore, ICAR introduces ID_Mobile as a multiplatform system to verify the authenticity of identity documents by means of smartphones and tablets in order to prevent identity fraud and improve document management. Our solution takes a vital technological lead in prevention of identity fraud, ending with the bottleneck of limited numbers of desktop scanning devices, avoiding negative customer experiences waiting for ID validation and opening new models of on-the-spot customer capture.

The feasibility study main objective is to assess the potential of the ID_Mobile solution from different angles.
- From the market angle, a market assessment has analysed the solution market potential in the identified target countries, as well as identifying the main competitors in each one.
- From the technical angle, a technical feasibility study of the developed solution has been carried out.
- From the operability angle, an assessment of the impact of the solution on the current company in terms of resources has been developed.
- From the economic angle, a detailed forecast of sales and costs has been developed in order to assess the potential benefits of the solution.
- From the legal angle, a specific study has been performed in order to identify the adaptability of the ID_Mobile brand in terms of IPR and the certifications required to operate.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The market assessment focuses on the viability of the ID_Mobile solution in ten selected countries identified as targets. The assessment is divided into a macro analysis (which follows the PEST methodology and focuses its attention to the general market trends in each target sector) and a micro analysis, which focuses on the situation of each target sector in each target country. This wide assessment permits to quantify the ID_Mobile market potential and to identify a series of key variables and indicators, which are weighted in order to select the key target markets and to stablish and international strategy to launch the solution into the market in 2017.

The technical feasibility study focuses on several key technical aspects: identification of the most common image quality issues that impact the solution performance, feasibility of image quality tools to detect or avoid those issues, analysis of the hardware and software capabilities of the most common mobile and tablet devices to verify that they will be enough to support ID_Mobile requirements, feasibility of verifying facial features present on the ID document against an image of the person doing the transaction and feasibility of a manual verification platform.

To assess the operational and economic viability of the solution, the company has set a 5 year plan in order to achieve a global market share of more than 10 million euros in 2021. On the basis of this target, the company estimates the sales forecast, which at the same time permits to identify the associated operation cost and direct cost of developing and exploiting the solution. The results of this accurate analysis conclude that the company will start having a positive EBITDA just two years after launching the solution into the market.

In legal terms, the ID_Mobile solution has freedom to operate, although a prior trademark diagnoses concluded that the ID_Mobile brand could present some problems unless a particular visual brand is developed. For this reason, during the Phase 1 a specific logo for the ID_Mobile solution has been developed and it is presented in this document. Additionally, the legal study also analyses the possible certifications and standards the solution would need to follow in case of entering the market taking into account the competitors.

Finally, the company starts paving the ground for future collaboration in a potential Phase 2 by contacting different partners from the target sectors. The final section of this document describes these partners and includes a letter of expression of interest for each of the cases, showing that the potential clients have a clear interest in the ID_Mobile solution and its future development.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The feasibility study developed during Phase 1 has been key to assess the wide possibilities of the ID_Mobile solution to enter the market, both domestic and international, and to operate within the key target sectors meeting the demand needs. This success formula has two main pillars: on one hand, ICAR offers expertise, know-how, a solid team and more than ten years of experience offering high-quality products, factors that are of utmost importance for the demanding clients of the target sectors; on the other hand, the solution proposed is innovative, as it clearly gives answer to the market demand and adapts to the consumer needs and the market environment and trends. Another key point is that the solution has proved to work in prior pilots developed and it has caught the client’s attention thanks to its high added value.

The expected results of the project (including Phase 1 and Phase 2) is to provide the customer with a solution that identifies, extracts and verifies all the ID documents information from tablets or smartphones in real time, maximizing the quality of the results obtained and minimizing the time in order to achieve a time-to-market response. In order to achieve these expected results the ID_Mobile solution needs to be further developed in an envisaged Phase 2, which will focus on: i) implement the technical improvements identified in the technical feasibility study, and ii) test the final solution in a real environment thanks to the collaboration with the partners identified in Phase 1.

Fully developed, the ID_Mobile solution will be a key asset for our target customers, as it will enable safer transactions while reducing costs and increasing benefits. At the same time, the ID_Mobile solution will have a wider social impact, as it will boost customer experience by adapting the latest technology to the new consumer behaviour, conditioned by the universal and increasing use of smartphones and tablets in our every-day lives.

The ID_mobile solution at a glance