Introducing the New FACEIO Website: Updated Docs, More Languages, and New Products

The new FACEIO website brings together updated developer documentation, localized pages, accessibility guidance, and dedicated product pages for facial authentication, Meeting Shield, and ID Match.

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For website owners and businesses, it makes the options easier to understand. For developers, it provides a clearer path from creating a FACEIO application to integrating the fio.js JavaScript library and connecting authentication results to an existing backend.

Updated Documentation, From Your First Integration to Production

The documentation follows the work developers need to do: create an application, configure it, integrate the widget, and handle the results.

Start with Getting Started, our guide to a 5-minute facial authentication integration. It walks through creating an application in the FACEIO Console, obtaining its Public ID, reviewing the security and privacy settings, and adding fio.js to your website or web app.

Then use the Integration Guide for method parameters, return values, error codes, and framework examples. It covers enroll() for registering new users, authenticate() for returning users, and session handling with restartSession().

The Developer Center connects these resources with the references you need as your implementation grows:

  • Facial ID reference: understand the identifier returned after enrollment and how to associate it with your own user accounts.
  • REST API reference: manage Facial IDs and use the documented backend endpoints while keeping private API keys on your server.
  • Webhook documentation: receive enrollment, authentication, and Facial ID deletion events in your backend.
  • Security best practices: review PIN Code validation, liveness settings, domain restrictions, and the controls needed around your login flow.
  • Privacy best practices: plan notices, consent, retention, deletion, and recognition-engine deployment.

Already using FACEIO? Revisit these references before your next release, especially if you are adding webhooks, changing security settings, or updating account-deletion workflows.

Read FACEIO in Your Language

The website and developer documentation are now available in four localized versions alongside English:

Use the language selectors in the header or footer to move between equivalent pages. Technical names such as fio.js, Facial ID, API methods, and error constants remain unchanged so they stay consistent with the code you write.

Website localization is separate from the embedded experience: the FACEIO widget supports more than 70 languages, helping teams provide enrollment and authentication flows for users in different markets.

Facial Authentication for Websites, Web Apps, and Corporate Portals

FACEIO facial authentication remains the core of the platform. It lets users enroll and authenticate through a browser widget, using the device's camera without requiring a native mobile app or a dedicated biometric sensor.

Developers load fio.js, initialize it with the application's Public ID, and connect enrollment and authentication to their existing interface. The library works with Vanilla JavaScript, React, Vue, Next.js, and other JavaScript stacks.

Your backend keeps control of accounts, sessions, recovery, and authorization. FACEIO does not store, handle, or access biometric hashes; the selected facial recognition engine manages them. The updated documentation explains these responsibilities and the available cloud and PixLab Insight on-premises deployment options.

Meeting Shield: Video Risk Signals for Business Meetings

FACEIO Meeting Shield is a Chrome extension for supported Google Meet, Zoom Web, and Microsoft Teams Web sessions.

It analyzes visible meeting video and reports suspicious signals associated with deepfakes, synthetic video, replayed footage, and manipulated facial motion. Its local-first analysis is designed to avoid uploading raw meeting video.

Meeting Shield is intended for situations such as remote interviews, executive calls, financial consultations, and customer meetings. It gives teams additional information to review before sharing sensitive information or making a decision. These signals support the organization's verification process; they do not establish a participant's identity or guarantee that every manipulated video will be detected.

Visit the product page to review how the extension works and request access through the FACEIO Console.

ID Match: Compare a Live Selfie with an ID Portrait

FACEIO ID Match brings a guided selfie-to-ID comparison into your website or web app.

It uses the same application setup and fio.js integration pattern as facial authentication. Calling idmatch() opens a popup that captures a live selfie and an ID document, performs a liveness check, and compares the selfie with the portrait extracted from the document. Your application can also request selected document fields.

Document scanning, portrait extraction, and optional field extraction are powered by PixLab DOCSCAN. Submitted images and processing data are handled in RAM and deleted immediately after the result is ready or the session fails. The processing pipeline retains no submitted images, document data, or scan logs.

ID Match compares the two faces. It does not authenticate the document, perform KYC or AML checks, or decide whether to approve a user. Your application determines how to use the returned result and any requested fields.

Accessibility Is Part of the Integration

The updated website also explains the FACEIO widget's accessibility features: visual and audio instructions, keyboard navigation, and screen-reader support with compatible browsers and assistive technologies.

These features help guide users through enrollment and authentication. Before release, test the complete experience within your own website or web app and provide another way to access an account for users who cannot or do not want to use facial authentication.

Start with the New Guides

Whether you are adding passwordless face login to a customer website, integrating facial authentication into a corporate portal, or exploring Meeting Shield and ID Match, start with the product pages and updated documentation.

Open the FACEIO Console to create an application and obtain its Public ID, then follow the Getting Started guide to integrate fio.js.

For explanations and implementation articles, explore the FACEIO Knowledge Center. For public technical questions, join the FACEIO Community Forum.

PixLab & FACEIO Pricing Update: Clearer Plans, Better Value, More Power 🚀

We’ve just rolled out an important pricing update across PixLab and FACEIO, and it’s one we’re genuinely excited about. The goal is simple:

make our plans clearer, fairer, and better aligned with how developers, teams, and businesses actually use our products.

If you’ve been using PixLab or FACEIO or thinking about it, this update is for you.

Pricing Update


Why We Updated Our Pricing

Over time, PixLab and FACEIO have grown from individual APIs into full AI platforms used in production by developers, startups, and enterprises worldwide.

Our previous pricing tiers were functional, but they didn’t fully reflect:

  • The maturity of the products
  • The real value delivered at each level
  • The different needs of individuals vs. businesses vs. enterprises

So we redesigned the pricing ladder to be:

  • More intentional
  • Easier to understand
  • Better at guiding users to the right plan

The New Pricing Plans

Here’s the updated pricing for both PixLab and FACEIO:

Plan Price Best for
Starter $20 / month Developers getting started, testing, small projects with moderate traffic
Pro $39 / month Serious individual users and small teams with high traffic
Business $99 / month Production workloads and growing companies
Enterprise $200+ / month High-scale, compliance, and custom needs

Each step represents a real jump in capability, not just a cosmetic upgrade. View full pricing details:


Why This Pricing Works Better

Each tier now has a clear purpose. No confusion. No overlap:

  • Starter → moderate traffic apps, and early usage
  • Pro → daily, production ready, serious usage
  • Business → production and team workflows
  • Enterprise → scale, compliance, and support

What This Means for You

If you’re already a user:

  • You now have clearer upgrade paths
  • Better alignment between price and features
  • Plans that grow with your usage

If you’re new:

  • You can start at $20 with confidence
  • Upgrade only when you actually need more power
  • No artificial complexity or hidden traps

Try the New Plans Today

Whether you’re building:

  • AI-powered apps
  • Face authentication systems
  • OCR and document workflows
  • Computer vision pipelines
  • Enterprise-grade AI solutions
  • Content Creation & Visual Marketing via BG-REMOVE and TXT-REMOVE APIs

The new PixLab and FACEIO plans are designed to support you from first experiment to full production. Get started now:

PixLab

FACEIO


Final Thoughts

This pricing update isn’t about charging more.
It’s about pricing honestly, supporting growth, and building long-term trust.

As always, thank you for building with PixLab andFACEIO. 💙

Introducing PixLab’s New PDF APIs: Convert, Scan, and Generate Documents with Vision A

Seamless PDF automation with Vision AI, OCR, and Document Intelligence

We’re excited to announce the release of three powerful new PixLab PDF API endpoints, designed to make PDF workflows smarter, faster, and fully automated. With these additions, developers can now convert PDFs to images, extract text with OCR, scan official ID documents, and programmatically generate PDF documents with ease.

Whether you're building fintech onboarding flows, automated invoice systems, document processing pipelines, or business reporting tools, PixLab’s new PDF APIs are built for you.


✅ pdftoimg — Convert PDFs to Images

Convert every page inside a PDF into high-resolution images for preview, analysis, or AI-based processing.

Perfect for: - Document previews & thumbnails
- Feeding pages into Vision LLMs
- AI-based document analysis pipelines

👉 Documentation → https://pixlab.io/endpoints/pdftoimg


✅ pdfscan — PDF Text Extraction & OCR

Transform scanned or image-based PDFs into searchable, machine-readable text using PixLab’s OCR engine.

Use Cases: - Invoice and receipt automation
- Document processing
- Enterprise data extraction integrations

👉 Documentation → https://pixlab.io/endpoints/ocr


✅ genpdf — Generate PDF Files Programmatically

Create clean, branded PDF documents from HTML, data payloads, or structured templates.

Ideal for: - Invoice generation
- Digital certificates & reports
- Legal and business form creation
- Workflow automation & SaaS platforms

👉 Documentation → https://pixlab.io/endpoints/pdfgen


Built for Modern Document Automation

These Vision APIs are designed to support end-to-end intelligent document pipelines:

  • ✅ Convert → Extract → Analyze → Export
  • ✅ Multi-language OCR + Vision AI
  • ✅ Works with spreadsheets, scanned forms, images, & office docs
  • ✅ Simple API integration across all programming languages

Start Building with PixLab

These endpoints are now live and available to all PixLab users.

👉 Browse all PDF-related endpoints:
https://pixlab.io/api-endpoints

🔐 Get your API key:
https://console.pixlab.io


What’s Coming Next

  • PDF annotation API suite
  • Merge / split PDF tools
  • Structured invoice extraction templates
  • Vision-powered business form understanding

Document Intelligence for the AI Era

At PixLab, our mission is simple:
Deliver world-class Vision AI and Document Intelligence tools to every developer.

Got feedback or need help getting started?
💬 https://pixlab.io/support

— The PixLab Vision Team

PixLab Releases Groundbreaking Background Removal API for Developers and Creators

PixLab is proud to announce the official release of the new /bgremove API endpoint, a powerful, production-grade tool that enables background and foreground object removal from images with just a single API call.

PixLab Background Removal API

Designed with developers, marketers, and e-commerce platforms in mind, this RESTful API makes it trivially easy to integrate high-accuracy background removal into any application with no GPU or machine learning expertise required.


Why Use PixLab's Background Removal API?

Whether you are building a product listing platform, automating social media creatives, or simply want to clean up user-generated content, background removal is essential. Here's why PixLab’s Background Remove API stands out:

  • Fast & Reliable: Real-time processing with production-grade SLAs.
  • AI-Powered: Leverages deep learning models to detect and isolate the foreground.
  • Easy to Integrate: Works with plain HTTP requests — SDK-free.
  • Base64 Output or Direct URL: Get the result as an embeddable base64 or save-ready image.
  • Globally Distributed: CDN-backed for latency-sensitive applications.
  • Affordable & Transparent Pricing: Pay only for what you use.

Use Cases

Industry Use Case
E-Commerce Clean product shots with transparent background
Real Estate Remove clutter in listing photos
Marketing Tools Creative automation, thumbnails, ad creatives
Social Media Profile picture editing, story templates
SaaS Platforms Image editing in your user dashboard

Official Documentation

You’ll find the full API reference, parameters, response structure, and integration guides at:

Background Remove API Docs


How to Get Started

  1. Get your API key from the PixLab Console
  2. Review the documentation here
  3. Try it out in seconds with your image with Python|JavaScript|PHP and Ruby Code Samples
  4. Use the output in your app or save it locally

Built on the PixLab Vision Platform

This new endpoint is part of the broader PixLab Vision Platform, which includes:


Start Building Today

Join thousands of developers, marketing agencies, and creators automating their visual workflows with PixLab.

👉 Explore the Background Removal API →
👉 Get Your API Key →


Explore the New PixLab Vision Platform VLM API Endpoints

PixLab’s Vision VLM Platform introduces a groundbreaking set of Vision Language Model (VLM) endpoints that combine natural language processing and computer vision in a simple, developer-friendly API suite.

PixLab Vision Platform

From querying images and parsing complex documents to generating PDFs and extracting ID data, the PixLab VLM API makes it easy to integrate intelligent image and document analysis into your own apps.


Vision Language Model Endpoints

These endpoints allow your application to understand images and video frames with natural language intelligence.

  • /query – Ask natural language questions about images and receive contextual answers
  • /describe – Get a natural language description of an image
  • /tagimg – Retrieve tags describing the image content
  • /detect – Detect and localize objects in the image
  • /vocr – OCR via vision models for printed text
  • /nsfw – Detect explicit content in media

Unstructured Document Parsing

Parse unstructured documents like invoices, receipts, and contracts using VLM-powered tools.

  • /llm-parse – Extract data from complex document layouts using a user-defined schema

Embedding APIs

Turn your content into machine-understandable vectors for search, indexing, and matching.

  • /txt-embed – Generate semantic embeddings from raw text
  • /img-embed – Generate vector embeddings from images

These endpoints are perfect for building your own AI-powered similarity search or recommendation systems.


Image Processing & Background Removal

PixLab also provides classic computer vision capabilities enhanced by AI.

  • /bg-remove – Remove background or unwanted objects from images
  • /docscan – Scan and extract JSON data from over 11,000 supported ID document types from 200+ countries
  • /nsfw – Pixelate or block NSFW content automatically

PDF Generation & Conversion

Create and manipulate PDF documents programmatically using these SDK-free endpoints:

  • /pdfgen – Generate media-rich PDFs from HTML or Markdown
  • /pdftoimg – Convert PDF files into image previews

LLM Tool Calling Infrastructure

PixLab provides built-in tools for enhancing your LLM pipeline:

  • /llm-tool – Get a list of tools callable from your LLM
  • /tool-call – Execute a tool call based on LLM output

These endpoints enable your LLM agent to execute functions dynamically and return results within the same context.


System Tools & Metadata

Helpful utility endpoints for checking server health and supported formats:

  • /status – View current system status
  • /about – Get PixLab version & license info
  • /extension – Retrieve supported file extensions

Explore the Full API Suite

PixLab offers over 150 RESTful endpoints for vision, media, and document automation tasks. Visit the following links to dive deeper:


Final Thoughts

Whether you're working on an AI productivity suite, eKYC onboarding, or document automation pipeline, PixLab’s VLM API delivers powerful, production-ready tools in minutes. All endpoints are accessible via secure HTTP requests and require no proprietary SDKs.

Get started by signing up for an API key at PixLab Console and explore what's possible with Vision Language Models.

Build smarter apps — faster.

PixLab API 2 Released with new API Portal and Over 150 Endpoints

PixLab Logo

The development team is thrilled to announce the release of PixLab API 2, a massive upgrade to our machine vision and media processing platform with now featuring a brand-new API Portal and over 150 powerful endpoints designed for businesses, developers, and creators.

From document extraction APIs, background removal, and dynamic PDF creation plus a brand new Vision Platform backed by state-of-the-art vision-language models, PixLab API 2 offers unmatched capabilities to analyze, transform, and automate visual content at scale.

👉 Explore the new API Portal now: pixlab.io/api-portal

👉 Explore the comprehensive list of API endpoints and their documentation: pixlab.io/api-endpoints


What’s New in PixLab API 2?

✅ All-New Developer Portal

  • Modern UI for key management, usage monitoring, and testing API calls in real time.
  • Comprehensive API Reference & Endpoint List with code samples and quickstart guides for every service.

🔍 Featured API Categories & Endpoints

ID Scan & Extract API

Scan official documents effortlessly with PixLab’s ID Scan & Extract API: - Comprehensive ID Support: Quickly scan & extract data from passports, driver's licenses, and 11,000+ document types from 197+ countries. - Structured JSON Output: Get parsed ID fields (name, DOB, MRZ, face, etc.) in a clean, machine-readable format.

👉 Explore DOCSCAN Documentation


FACEIO – Face Recognition & Authentication

Secure and frictionless passwordless authentication: - Facial Login: Enable seamless access with facial authentication. - Liveness Detection: Block spoofing with advanced anti-fraud checks. - Age Verification: Instantly validate user age for compliance.

👉 FACEIO Integration Guide


🖼️ Background Removal API

Remove image backgrounds with pixel-perfect precision: - Ultra-Fast Processing: Background-free images in seconds. - Automated & Scalable: Integrate into any web or mobile app.

👉 View Background Removal Docs

Try also the bulk version: BG Remove App ↗


NSFW & Content Moderation API

Keep your platform safe and compliant: - Blur, Pixelate, or Block harmful images or frames. - Detect adult, violent, or graphic content using advanced AI models.

👉 Content Moderation Docs


👁️‍🗨️ Vision-Language Models (VLMs)

Check out these insights from documents using Vision + NLP via the Vision Platform: - Document understanding with layout awareness - Great for invoices, contracts, ID cards, and more. Featured new Vision API endpoints:

👉 and a whole lot more Explore Vision APIs


📄 Rich PDF Generation API

Create beautiful PDFs at scale:

  • PDFGEN Endpoint: Convert HTML/Markdown to professional PDFs.
  • PDFTOIMG Endpoint: Preview and convert PDFs to image formats, as documented here.

👉 View Rich PDF Generation APIs


🛠️ Online Tools Backed by PixLab APIs

Explore our growing suite of web apps, each powered by PixLab’s infrastructure:


For Developers, Creators, and Businesses

PixLab API version 2 is now production-ready, SDK-free, and tightly integrated, making it ideal for:

  • Fintechs & KYC providers
  • E-commerce & SaaS platforms
  • AI developers & researchers
  • Content creators & automation teams

🔑 Get Your API Key & Start Your Integration Phase

Head to the PixLab Console to:

  • Generate your first API key
  • Integrate with over 150+ endpoints
  • Access complete documentation & live API testing tools

Join thousands of developers and businesses using PixLab to power the next generation of intelligent visual applications.

🧠 Build smarter, automate faster, and scale confidently with PixLab API 2.

— The PixLab Team

Introducing the New DOCSCAN API - Vision-Powered, SDK-Free, and Easier Than Ever

The PixLab Development Team is thrilled to announce the release of the next-generation DOCSCAN API, the core engine behind the newly rebranded PixLab ID Scan Platform.

Built from the ground up with Vision Language Models and hosted on the powerful PixLab Vision infrastructure, this update brings unmatched simplicity, security, and intelligence to identity document processing.

🌍 A Platform Re-imagined

Say goodbye to complex SDK integrations. The new DOCSCAN API requires no client-side SDKs, just a single HTTPS-enabled REST endpoint that supports both GET and POST requests. This means you can call DOCSCAN from any programming environment, whether you're using Python, Java, PHP, Go, or even a shell script.

⚡ What's New in This Version?

✅ Powered by Vision Language Models

The new DOCSCAN API harnesses the full power of PixLab’s Vision Language Models to extract structured, high-quality data from scanned documents with increased accuracy and robustness.

✅ No SDK Required

Forget installing SDKs or maintaining device-specific libraries. DOCSCAN is pure REST—simple, fast, and universal.

✅ Single Endpoint Simplicity

Use a single, unified API endpoint for both document scanning and data extraction. No need to juggle multiple APIs or chained requests.

✅ Supports GET & POST

Whether you prefer URL-based GET requests or multipart POST uploads, DOCSCAN supports both with full flexibility.

✅ TLS 1.3 Secured

All API traffic is encrypted end-to-end using TLS 1.3, ensuring maximum security and compliance from the first byte.

🚀 Built for Developers

The updated documentation at pixlab.io/id-scan-api/docscan has been completely restructured to be developer-first. Clear examples, copy-ready code snippets, and real-world integration guides will help you get up and running in minutes.

🧩 Use Cases

  • ID verification in finance, healthcare, or government
  • Digital onboarding for apps and services
  • Automated customer registration flows
  • Global document scanning with consistent output formats

🛠 Start Building Today

Head to the PixLab Console to generate your API key and begin integrating the new DOCSCAN API in minutes.

Whether you're modernizing your on-boarding flow or automating ID verification at scale, the new DOCSCAN API offers unmatched speed, simplicity, and intelligence—without the SDK overhead.

🔗 Learn more: pixlab.io/id-scan-api/
📚 REST API Documentation: pixlab.io/id-scan-api/docscan

🌍 Universal Document Support

The DOCSCAN API provides robust support for a wide array of officially issued identification documents. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Passports
  • ID Cards (Citizen ID, Resident ID, Immigration Card, etc.)
  • Driving Licenses
  • Visas
  • Birth & Death Certificates

The API covers documents from nearly all UN-recognized countries, offering unparalleled versatility. This release expands the API's capabilities to handle over 11,094 ID document variations originating from more than 197 countries. Below is a list of supported countries by DOCSCAN :

  • Afghanistan
  • Albania
  • Algeria
  • Andorra
  • Angola
  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Argentina
  • Armenia
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Azerbaijan
  • Bahamas
  • Bahrain
  • Bangladesh
  • Barbados
  • Belarus
  • Belgium
  • Belize
  • Benin
  • Bhutan
  • Bolivia
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Botswana
  • Brazil
  • Brunei
  • Bulgaria
  • Burkina Faso
  • Burundi
  • Cabo Verde
  • Cambodia
  • Cameroon
  • Canada
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Chile
  • China
  • Colombia
  • Comoros
  • Congo (Brazzaville)
  • Congo (Kinshasa)
  • Costa Rica
  • Cote d'Ivoire
  • Croatia
  • Cuba
  • Cyprus
  • Czechia
  • Denmark
  • Djibouti
  • Dominica
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ecuador
  • Egypt
  • El Salvador
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Eritrea
  • Estonia
  • Eswatini
  • Ethiopia
  • Fiji
  • Finland
  • France
  • Gabon
  • Gambia
  • Georgia
  • Germany
  • Ghana
  • Greece
  • Grenada
  • Guatemala
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Guyana
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • Hungary
  • Iceland
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Jamaica
  • Japan
  • Jordan
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kenya
  • Kiribati
  • Kuwait
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Laos
  • Latvia
  • Lebanon
  • Lesotho
  • Liberia
  • Libya
  • Liechtenstein
  • Lithuania
  • Luxembourg
  • Madagascar
  • Malawi
  • Malaysia
  • Maldives
  • Mali
  • Malta
  • Marshall Islands
  • Mauritania
  • Mauritius
  • Mexico
  • Micronesia
  • Moldova
  • Monaco
  • Mongolia
  • Montenegro
  • Morocco
  • Mozambique
  • Myanmar
  • Namibia
  • Nauru
  • Nepal
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Nicaragua
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • North Korea
  • North Macedonia
  • Norway
  • Oman
  • Pakistan
  • Palau
  • Panama
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Paraguay
  • Peru
  • Philippines
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Qatar
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Rwanda
  • Saint Kitts and Nevis
  • Saint Lucia
  • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
  • Samoa
  • San Marino
  • Sao Tome and Principe
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Senegal
  • Serbia
  • Seychelles
  • Sierra Leone
  • Singapore
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Solomon Islands
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • South Sudan
  • Spain
  • Sri Lanka
  • Sudan
  • Suriname
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Syria
  • Taiwan
  • Tajikistan
  • Tanzania
  • Thailand
  • Timor-Leste
  • Togo
  • Tonga
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Tunisia
  • Turkey
  • Turkmenistan
  • Tuvalu
  • Uganda
  • Ukraine
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Uruguay
  • Uzbekistan
  • Vanuatu
  • Vatican City
  • Venezuela
  • Vietnam
  • Yemen
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe

PixLab’s Document Scanner now able to scan Driving License issued by any U.S. state

The PixLab Optical Character Recognition team is thrilled to announce that its document scanning API endpoint /DOCSCAN, is now able to scan U.S. Driver’s licenses and driving permits issued by jurisdictions from all the 50 U.S. states.

DOCSCAN API endpoint now supports scanning US driver’s license from all 5O states

The /DOCSCAN API endpoint now allows any Website that is presented with a U.S Driver’s License, International Passport or ID Card to verify that the inputted information by the end user matches those present on the submitted or uploaded ID document image.

Usage & Code Samples

Given an input U.S driver’s license image issued by any of the 50 U.S. states, crop the license holder face, and extract fields of interest as follow:

Input U.S driver’s license image Car Vectors by Vecteezy Input U.S driver’s license image

Extracted Fields Showcase extracted fields from the submitted driver's image

The extracted fields after successful call to the /DOCSCAN API endpoint are:

  • License holder cropped face. This image will be stored on an AWS S3 bucket of your choice if you connect your target bucket from the PixLab Console.
  • Issuing Country (USA obviously).
  • Issuing State Name.
  • Issuing State Two-Letter Code.
  • License Number.
  • License Holder’s Full Name.
  • License Holder’s Address.
  • License Holder’s Date of Birth (yyyy-mm-dd).
  • License Issuing Date (yyyy-mm-dd).
  • License Expiry Date (yyyy-mm-dd).
  • License Holder’s Gender.

The code samples that is used to achieve such results are available via the following Gists:

Algorithms Under the hood

  • Face extraction is automatically performed using the /FACEDETECT API endpoint.
  • /DOCSCAN already supports GET & POST HTTP methods so you can upload your document images directly from your application without relying on a foreign server. Refer to this Gist on how to do so.
  • Upon the image processed on our server, it is automatically deleted. We do not keep trace or any log of your input images.
  • Internally, we mainly rely on PP-OCR which is a practical ultra-lightweight OCR system that is mainly composed of three parts: Text Detection, Bounding Box Isolation, & Text Recognition. This combination produces highly accurate results in less than 5 seconds of processing.

Further Reading

  • The official endpoint documentation is available to consult here, and the reader is more than encouraged to take a look at our production ready, code samples, available in various programming languages on the PixLab Code Samples Page.

Full Scan Support for United Arab Emirates (UAE) ID/Residence Cards

The PixLab Document Scanner, development team is pleased to announce that is now fully support scanning Emirates (UAE) ID & Residence Cards via the /DOCSCAN API endpoint at real-time using your favorite programming language.

When invoked, the /DOCSCAN HTTP API endpoint shall Extract (crop) any detected face and transform the raw UAE ID/Residence Card content such as holder name, nationality, ID number, etc. into a JSON object ready to be consumed by your app.

Below, a typical output result of the /DOCSCAN API endpoint for an Emiratis (UAE) ID card input sample:

Input Emirates (UAE) ID Card

UAE ID card specimen

Extracted UAE ID Card Fields

UAE extracted fields

The code samples used to achieve such result are available to consult via the following gists:

The same logic applies to scanning official travel documents like Visas, Passports, and ID Cards from many others countries in an unified manner, regardless of the underlying programming language used on your backend (Python, PHP, Ruby, JS, etc.) thanks to the DOCSCAN API endpoint as shown in previous blog posts:

Algorithm Details

Internally, PixLab's document scanner engine is based on PP-OCR which is a practical ultra-lightweight OCR system, mainly composed of three parts: DB text detection, detection frame correction, and CRNN text recognition. DB stands for Real-time Scene Text Detection.

PP-OCR: A Practical Ultra Lightweight OCR System - Algorithm Overview

PP-OCR Algorithm Overview

The system adopts 19 effective strategies from 8 aspects including backbone network selection and adjustment, prediction head design, data augmentation, learning rate transformation strategy, regularization parameter selection, pre-training model use, and automatic model tailoring and quantization to optimize and slim down the models of each module.

In PP-OCR, Differentiable Binarization (DB) is used as text detector which is based on a simple segmentation network. It integrates feature extraction and sequence modeling. It adopts the Connectionist Temporal Classification (CTC) loss to avoid the inconsistency between prediction and label.

The algorithm is further optimized in five aspect where the detection model adopts the CML (Collaborative Mutual Learning) knowledge distillation strategy and CopyPaste data expansion strategy. The recognition model adopts the LCNet lightweight backbone network, U-DML knowledge distillation strategy and enhanced CTC loss function improvement, which further improves the inference speed and prediction effect.

Modern Passport Structure & Bulk Scan APIs

A Passport is a document that almost everyone has at some point in their lives. It is issued by the country’s government to its citizens and mainly being used for traveling purposes. It also serves as proof of nationality, name, and more importantly an Universally Unique ID for its owner.

Modern Passport Structure

Passport Specimen

Many services have been long-time accepting passports as identification documents from their customers to complete their KYC (Know Your Customer) form as required by the legislation in force. This is especially true and enforced for the Finance, HR or Travel sectors. In most cases, a human operator will verify the authenticity of the submitted document and grant validation or reject it.

Things can get really complicated if you have hundreds of KYC forms to checks, but also if your clients differ in nationality. Quickly, you will find yourself drowning in physical copies of passports in different languages that you can not even understand. Let alone the potential legal problems you can face with passport copies laying around the office. This is why, an automated & safe solution for Passports processing is required!

Modern Passport Structure

From the 1980s on wards, most countries started issuing passports containing an MRZ. MRZ stands for the Machine Readable Zone and is usually located at the bottom of the Passport as shown below:

Modern Passport Specimen

Passports MRZ Sample

Passports that contain an MRZ are referred to as MRPs, machine-readable passports (Almost all modern issued Passports have one). The structure of the MRZ is standardized by the ICAO Document 9303 and the International Electro-technical Commission as ISO/IEC 7501-1.

The MRZ is an area on the document that can easily be read by a machine using an OCR Reader Application or API. It’s not important for you to understand how it works, but if you look at it carefully, you will see that it contains most of the relevant information on the document, combined with additional characters and a checksum that can be extracted programmatically and automatically via API as we will see in the next section.

Once parsed, the following information are automatically extracted from the target MRZ and made immediately available to your app, thanks to the /docscan API endpoint:

  • issuingCountry: The issuing country or organization, encoded in three characters.
  • fullName: Passport holder full name. The name is entirely upper case.
  • documentNumber: This is the passport number, as assigned by the issuing country. Each country is free to assign numbers using any system it likes.
  • checkDigit: Check digits are calculated based on the previous field. Thus, the first check digit is based on the passport number, the next is based on the date of birth, the next on the expiration date, and the next on the personal number. The check digit is calculated using this algorithm.
  • nationality: The issuing country or organization, encoded in three characters.
  • dateOfBirth: The date of the passport holder's birth in YYMMDD form. Year is truncated to the least significant two digits. Single digit months or days are perpended with 0.
  • sex: Sex of the passport holder, M for males, F for females, and < for non-specified.
  • dateOfExpiry: The date the passport expires in YYMMDD form. Year is truncated to the least significant two digits. Single digit months or days are perpended with 0.
  • personalNumber: This field is optional and can be used for any purpose that the issuing country desires.
  • finalcheckDigit: This is a check digit for positions 1 to 10, 14 to 20, and 22 to 43 on the second line of the MRZ. Thus, the nationality and sex are not included in the check. The check digit is calculated using this algorithm.

Automatic Passport Processing

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Fortunately for the developer wishing to automate Passports scanning, PixLab can automatically scan & extract passport MRZ but also help to detect possible fraudulent documents. This is made possible thanks to the /docscan API endpoint which let you in a single call scan government issued documents such as Passports, Visas or ID Cards from various countries.

Besides extracting MRZ, the /docscan API endpoint shall automatically crop any detected face and transform binary Machine Readable Zone into stream of text content (i.e. full name, issuing country, document number, date of expiry, etc.) ready to be consumed by your app in the JSON format.

Below, a typical output result of the /docscan endpoint for a passport input image:

Input Passport Specimen (JPEG/PNG/BMP Image)

Input Image URL

Extracted MRZ Fields

MRZ Fields

What follow is the gist used to achieve such result:

Other document scanning code samples are available to consult via the following Github links:

Face extraction is automatically performed using the /facedetect API endpoint. For a general purpose Optical Character Recognition engine, you should rely on the /OCR API endpoint instead. If you are dealing with PDF documents, you can convert them at first to raw images via the /pdftoimg endpoint.

Conclusion

The era we are in is more digitized than ever. Tasks that are repetitive are slowly being replaced by computers and robots. In many cases, they can perform these tasks faster, with a smaller amount of mistakes and in a more cost-effective manner. At PixLab we focus on building software to replace manual repetitive labor in administrative business processes. The processing and checking of passports can be very time-consuming. Using /docscan to automate your passport processing will enable you to save cost, on-board customers faster and reduce errors in administrative processes.