Svipe enters into an agreement with Sunet

Svipe announces that they have won “Procurement of a service for validation of identity documents including passports, driving licenses, etc. for the Swedish Research Council”.

This procurement aims to establish a function in eduID that allows identity verification using ICAO 9303 documents (so-called ePass or biometric passports).

Passports and national ID documents that follow this standard are currently issued by over 140 countries globally and have been mandatory within the EU since 2006.

The agreement is valid for two (2) years and can then be extended by another two (2) years. The agreement has a maximum scope of SEK 8 million.

It is of utmost importance that the identity verification for a service such as eduID is correct as a large number of functions place their trust in that identity. With the help of Svipe’s service, Sunet can safely issue eduID to students and researchers remotely if they hold a biometric ID document.

Reading of the person’s ID document is done with an app on a mobile phone that reads out the content from the document’s chip via NFC. Svipe ensures the authenticity by cryptographically verifying that the contents of the document are signed by the issuing country’s authority. The individual is then asked to perform a liveness check to ensure real ownership of the ID document with a self-built AI service.

“We are proud and very happy to have the trust of Sunet to identify their users. Sunet has always been at the forefront of identity management and digitization in general and it is therefore gratifying that they clearly require ICAO 9303 in this procurement. At present, there is no other way to validate an ID document online with the same level of security” says Svipe’s co-founder Stefan Farestam.