Enhancing Customer Authentication Through Face Recognition with Liveness Detection

In today’s digital landscape, financial institutions continually strive to enhance security measures while ensuring a seamless user experience. However, as technology evolves, so do the challenges associated with preventing online fraud.  Financial crimes such as identity theft are on the rise, making it crucial to secure users’ identities in every type of financial transaction. 

Understanding Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

With online banking and digital transactions becoming an integral part of everyday life, making electronic payments more secure and less vulnerable to fraud is essential. Since September 4, 2019, payment service providers (PSPs) have been required to implement Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in scenarios where customers:

– Access their payment accounts online.
– Initiate an electronic payment transaction.
– Perform any action via remote channels that may pose a risk of payment fraud or abuse.

SCA mandates the use of at least two independent authentication factors categorised as:

– Knowledge: Something the user knows (e.g., PIN or password).
– Possession: Something the user has (e.g., a one-time password, phone, or payment card).
– Inherence: Something the user is (e.g., fingerprint or facial recognition). 

The Role of Face Recognition and Liveness Detection in Secure Authentications

Face Recognition has become one of the most secure and convenient biometric authentication methods. This technology analyses unique facial features and quickly and accurately verifies a user’s identity. However, standard face recognition alone can be vulnerable to spoofing attacks, in which fraudsters use photos, videos, or 3D masks to bypass security checks.

This is where Liveness Detection comes in. Liveness detection is a powerful security feature that strengthens face recognition by verifying that the detected face belongs to a real, live person. This advanced mechanism ensures biometric authentication systems can differentiate between legitimate users and fraudulent attempts. By integrating face recognition with liveness detection, institutions can mitigate the risk of identity fraud while maintaining a frictionless user experience.

How Face Recognition and Liveness Detection Work

Face recognition technology captures and analyses an individual’s facial features to verify their identity. When enhanced with liveness detection, it ensures that only real users can authenticate themselves, preventing the use of static images or deepfake videos. 

Liveness detection is an advanced layer of biometric security that verifies the presence of a live human being during authentication. By analysing subtle human physiological and behavioral characteristics, it effectively prevents spoofing attacks, ensuring the integrity of facial recognition systems. There are two main types of liveness detection: 

– Active Liveness Detection: Requires user interaction, such as blinking, smiling, or head movements, making it difficult for fraudsters to use static images or pre-recorded videos.
– Passive Liveness Detection: Works without requiring user interaction, using AI and machine learning algorithms to analyse skin texture, micro-movements, and light reflections to determine if the subject is real. 

Advantages of Face Recognition with Liveness Detection

Enhanced Security
Face recognition combined with liveness detection significantly reduces the risk of identity fraud and spoofing attacks by ensuring that only real users can authenticate themselves. 

Seamless User Experience
By eliminating the need for complex passwords or PINs, face recognition with liveness detection enhances user convenience while maintaining high-security standards. 

Scalability
This technology can be easily integrated into various industries and applications, from financial services to healthcare and e-commerce. 

Cost Efficiency
By reducing fraud and unauthorised access, businesses can lower the financial impact associated with cyber threats and data breaches.

LOQR’s Face Recognition-Based Customer Authentication Solution

At LOQR, we provide a cutting-edge authentication Platform that ensures all identity verification processes are conducted with the highest level of security and compliance. Our biometric facial recognition and liveness detection technology offer a robust authentication solution, reducing fraud and enabling secure digital transactions.

PSD3 Compliance
Our solution meets the stringent requirements of the European Payment Services Directive (PSD3), ensuring secure online transactions and fraud prevention. 

Multi-Factor Authentication
We provide an advanced security framework that enhances user identity verification by combining multiple authentication factors, including biometric validation with face recognition and liveness detection. 

Flexible Risk-Based Authentication
Our Platform allows institutions to define authentication factors based on the operation’s risk level, leveraging mitigation capabilities to prevent fraud. 

Regulatory Compliance and Security 

LOQR’s authentication solution is fully compliant with: 

– General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Ensuring data privacy and security.
– eIDAS Regulation – Supporting the issuance of qualified certificates as a registered Certification Authority in the EU Trusted List.
– LINCE Qualification – Providing advanced protection against cyber threats in video identification tools.
– ISO/IEC 27001 & ISO/IEC 30107-3 – Meeting international information security and biometric authentication standards. 

Get in Touch

If you want to enhance security and streamline authentication for your customers with advanced face recognition and liveness detection, contact our team of experts today!
Learn how LOQR’s innovative solution can help integrate biometric authentication into your security framework.