In February, Microsoft first announced its Face Check facial recognition technology for its Entra digital identification services. Today, Microsoft officially revealed that Face Check is now generally available for all of its business customers to offer better and more secure identikit certification with the combination of a person"s phone selfie and their verified photo ID.
In a blog post, Microsoft said cybercriminals use insecure identification sign-ins for 65 percent of their attack paths. With the rise of generative AI, Microsoft says that normal digital identification systems can be broken by these bad actors. It states:
Impersonators can easily bypass common verification methods such as counting bicycles on a CAPTCHA or asking which street you grew up on. As fraud skyrockets for businesses and consumers, and impersonation tactics have become increasingly complex, identity verification has never been more important.
Face Check helps to solve these problems by comparing a user"s own selfie image on their phone with a verified photo of the same person from a confirmed source like a passport picture. Microsoft says:
By sharing only match results and not any sensitive identity data, Face Check strengthens an organization’s identity verification while protecting user privacy. It can detect and reject various spoofing techniques, including deepfakes, to fully protect your users’ identities.
Businesses and organizations can learn more about Face Check on this FAQ page. It also has more info on Microsoft Entra Verified ID, which is the company"s overall business identity and crediential service.
Businesses can sign up to use Microsoft"s Verified ID with Face Check as a separate stand-alone service which costs $0.25 per verification. Customers can also access it as a feature with the company"s Microsoft Entra Suite. There"s a free trial of Entra Suite that businesses can sign up for to try it out. It includes eight Face Check verifications per month.