Check that someone is who they say they are.
Send your customer a link. They photograph their passport or ID card. You get a decision back, usually inside a minute — by API, or pushed to your server the moment it lands.
No account, no card. The link opens the real flow in sandbox mode: your document, a live face check and a proof of address, each checked on our servers.
Machine-readable zone, read and checked on our own server
P<GBRSPECIMEN<<ANGELA<ZOE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< 9250764733GBR8106162F2705114<<<<<<<<<<<<<<04
- Name
- Angela Zoe Specimen
- Date of birth
- 16 Jun 1981
- Issuing country
- United Kingdom
- Expires
- 11 May 2027
- Check digits
- All five recomputed
- Age
- Over 18
The two lines at the bottom of every passport carry five check digits. We recompute all of them, on our machines, following ICAO 9303. A document with a digit that does not add up never reaches a human.
What your customer actually does
Three screens on their phone. No app to install, no account to create with us, nothing to remember afterwards.
-
They open your link
It carries your logo, your colour and your name. Ours appears once, in small type at the bottom, because the law says a person must know who is handling their documents.
2 seconds -
They photograph their document
Their own phone camera opens — no library to download, full resolution, works on an old Android as well as a new iPhone. They can look at the photo and retake it before sending.
about 30 seconds -
You get the decision
Approved, rejected, or held for review. The reasons a customer is allowed to see come back with it; the fraud signals stay in our audit log, where they belong.
usually under a minute
What we look at
You choose which checks run on each link. Every check that cannot complete sends the case to a human instead of failing it — an outage is never a rejection. Each report states what was established, with a figure and the reasons behind it, and the level of assurance reached: files sent, document filmed, or chip read.
The document itself
Passport, national ID card or driving licence. Front and back where the back carries data. Type and issuing country declared up front, then checked against what the document says.
The machine-readable zone
ICAO 9303, formats TD1, TD2 and TD3. Five check digits recomputed on our server. Catches a mistyped number, an altered date, a document that has expired.
The face
Three movements drawn at random, so a photograph of a photograph does not pass. The face is compared with the one printed on the document. Optional, per link.
Age and expiry
Date of birth read from the document, not typed by the customer. Under eighteen is refused outright. An expired document is flagged with its exact date and, by default, sent to a person — you can set your account to refuse it instead.
Sanctions and watchlists
A name that matches never fails on its own. It is flagged for a person to read, because sharing a name with someone is not a crime.
Proof of address
A utility bill or bank statement, read and matched against the name and the address you were given. Optional, per link.
Edited files
Every photo is weighed for signs of editing: the marks a desktop editor leaves when it saves an image, missing camera data, a size no phone produces. The report gives a figure, each reason, and a conclusion — not a vague warning.
The barcode on the back
North American licences carry a barcode that repeats the front. We read it and compare name, date of birth, number and expiry with the printed side. Where the state builds its number from the holder's name and birth date, we recompute it.
Screens, prints and screenshots
A photograph of a screen or of a colour print leaves a regular grid in the image. We measure it, and say so with the figures rather than guessing.
The document filmed
A short video of the card being tilted tells a real piece of plastic from a print-out or a screen: the reflection travels, the security features change colour. The video is read on the device and never leaves it — only the measurements are sent.
The portrait and its ghost
Most documents print a second, faint copy of the portrait. We compare the two: on a genuine card they come from the same photograph. A replaced portrait rarely survives that comparison.
Seen before
The same file, the same document number, the same portrait or the same device turning up under another name is flagged across every verification we run. A document you confirm as forged is refused everywhere afterwards — without ever revealing another client's data.
The passport chip
Recent passports carry a chip signed by the issuing state, readable by any modern Android phone. It cannot be forged, and it costs nothing to run. Our servers already verify the signature and the integrity of every data group; the phone app that reads the chip is in testing.
Companies, not just people
Company number, registered address, directors and beneficial owners, checked against the public register. For onboarding a business rather than a person.
Two calls, and you are done
One to create the link, one to read the result — or let us push it to you instead. Everything is JSON over HTTPS. There is no SDK to install and nothing to keep up to date.
# Create a verification link curl https://sylmera.com/api/verify/sessions.php \ -H "X-Sylmera-Key: syl_test_…" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "client_reference": "user-42", "checks": ["document", "face"], "return_url": "https://your-company.example/done" }'
# What comes back { "session": { "id": "a4f1…", "url": "https://sylmera.com/v/9c2f…", "status": "created" } } # Send that url to your customer. # The rest happens without you.
Sandbox keys work the moment you sign up, before anyone approves anything. The full reference is here, including webhook signatures and every error code.
Half the price of Stripe Identity
You pay for verifications that finish. Links that are never opened, and links your customer abandons, cost you nothing.
£0.70 per completed check
The first 50 every month are free, on every account, for as long as you have one.
Stripe Identity is listed at $1.50 a verification; converted here at $1.25 to the pound for comparison. Their published price, not a quote.
| Provider | Price |
|---|---|
| Sylmera Identity | £0.70 |
| Didit | $0.30 |
| iDenfy | from $1.35 |
| Stripe Identity | $1.50 |
| Sumsub, Onfido, Veriff | on request |
You top your account up by card and draw it down as you go. No monthly fee, no minimum, no contract to sign before you can try it. If you stop using it, you stop paying.
Where the documents go
Someone handing over their passport deserves a straight answer about what happens to it. So does the team that asked them for it.
Photographs are stored outside the web root, on our own servers, and are never reachable by a public address. Your staff see the documents belonging to your organisation and no others — every query in the portal is bounded by your organisation, without exception.
The page your customer opens loads no external script and no external font. Nothing about them is sent to a third party for advertising or analytics, because there is nothing on that page to send it with.
Sylmera Identity is operated from the United Kingdom. Selling this service makes us a processor of your customers' data: expect a processing agreement, stated retention periods and a real deletion route, and ask us for them before you sign anything.
Questions people ask first
How long does it take to plug in?
An afternoon. Create a sandbox key, make one POST request, send yourself the link it returns. Most teams have it working before they have finished reading the page.
Does my customer need a Sylmera account?
No, and they never will. The link is the only thing that authorises the session, it works once, and it expires. They are your customer, not ours.
What happens when a check cannot run?
The case goes to a person. A provider being down, a key being absent or a network failing is never turned into a rejection — that rule is written into the engine and it is not adjustable per account.
Can I review the borderline cases myself?
Yes. Anything held for review lands in your portal with the photographs attached, and you approve or reject it there. You can also leave it to us.
Which countries are covered?
Any passport that carries a standard machine-readable zone, which is effectively every passport issued in the last twenty years. ID cards and driving licences vary by country — test yours in sandbox and you will know in a minute.
Will it catch a good forgery?
Not always, and we would rather say so. The check-digit formula is public, so a well-made forgery can satisfy it. What the engine does is remove everything inconsistent, expired or altered, and push the rest to a human. Chip reading, which a forgery cannot pass, is next.
Try it on your own document
Open a sandbox link, photograph whatever ID is in your pocket, and see exactly what your customers will see. It takes a minute and costs nothing.