Morphing, or how bad guys make a perfect copy of your face
Morphing is an information technology technique used by international criminals that perverts the biomedical controls of border and customs security and transforms passport and document photographs in order to gain access to countries with impunity. Basically, they make an exact copy of your face, merge it with that of the "bad guy" and get a third face that impersonates you without any problem, even to unlock the facial recognition of your smartphone.
The so-called ‘smart borders’ have been a reality in Spain for almost five years. Since 2018, the biomic system has been installed at checkpoints at ports, airports and even roads with facial and fingerprint searches, in addition to the consequent passport scanning and queries in national and international police bases.
These technological advances in security create challenges for all governments around the world, since the mafias are able to get hold of passports or ID cards to create images of their own identities;s identity cards to create images that combine two photos, of two completely different people, to impersonate someone and overcome these biomedical controls in an easy way.
The ‘bad guys’ can make perfect copies of your face and impersonate you at borders, customs, to unlock smartphones, to enter websites containing confidential data…
This security threat, recently detected at border controls, is called ‘morphing’. It is a computer technique that manipulates the photographs in passports and identity documents to forge credentials and circumvent the facial biometric systems at border controls. Organized crime and terrorism take advantage of these security breaches to move freely and enter the different states with impunity.
The importance of creating a security framework that protects both governments and citizens from the possible breach of these detection systems has been on the table in the past;TECNOSEC, the first Salon de Altas Tecnologóas de Seguridad e Inteligencia, at a round table chaired by the head of the area in the Ministry of the Interior at the Subdirecón General de Sistemas de Información y Comunicaciones para la Seguridad, Juan Carlos González Carvajal, where different technological solutions in border control systems and in the fight against organized crime and terrorism were presented, stressing the importance of the biomedical systems implemented in these controls to be agile and automated.
A security challenge in which SICPA plays a major role, as it has been helping governments, public administrations and private entities to protect their interests for more than 50 years;For more than 50 years it has been helping governments, public administrations and private entities to protect their interests for more than 50 years through, among other solutions, its security curtain, which protects more than 90% of the world's cash banknotes. Its extensive experience in this field has enabled it to develop and successfully implement solutions that also include digital security elements adapted to the new times, also in the case of borders to protect ID cards and passports.In addition, the validation of interoperability of verifiable credentials on both sides of the Atlantic between the USA and Europe and the decentralized digital identity for the Luxembourg Resident Card. In addition, it should be noted that the United Nations has recently approved SICPA for the development of the future digital identity for its international computing center (UNICC).
For this particular issue of ‘morphing’, SICPA has developed an impenetrable system that shields any attempt of counterfeiting. This solution takes the original photograph of our passport or document and converts it into a ‘visual hash’ or encrypted code of just 20 bytes with cryptographic algorithms that are embedded in a securized QR code.
The system prevents subsequent forgeries, because the process is unidirectional: the QR could never make the reverse path and become the original photograph. In addition, it facilitates the exchange of information between states, due to the small size of the visual hash, and speeds up the process of biomedical verification at border controls.
Of course, this technological solution contemplates inclusivity as a differentiating factor to facilitate equitable, easy-to-use, secure and compatible access for all, regardless of individual economic or social circumstances.