Supported document type
Detect tampered and deepfake Canada PR Card
The Canada Permanent Resident Card, carte de résident permanent, is the bilingual English and French plastic card issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to prove permanent resident status. It also works as a travel document, and its three-line machine readable zone carries ICAO check digits that must agree with the printed face.
API slug: canada_pr_card
Last updated:
What a genuine Canada PR card contains
The front carries photo, name, sex, nationality, date of birth, signature, and expiry date, with bilingual labels and dates in DD MMM YY form. The back carries the immigration category, eye colour, height, country of birth, date the holder became a permanent resident, a card number, and a three-line thirty-character MRZ with an optical stripe. Current cards also carry an RFID chip holding only a unique identifier.
The usual term is five years, and one-year cards are sometimes issued legitimately, so a short term is not a flag on its own. Card designs differ across issue years and immigration category codes vary between holders. The card is not a citizenship document, not the paper confirmation of permanent residence, and not the US green card.
How Canada PR card forgeries are made
MRZ check digits
The machine readable zone uses ICAO 9303 check digits. A zone that fails them was typed or edited after generation.
MRZ against printed fields
Name, birth date, and expiry in the zone must agree with the printed face. A zone that disagrees with the visible fields signals an edit to one but not the other.
Term and date logic
The usual term is five years from issue. An expiry more than five years after the date the holder became a resident or the issue date contradicts the issuing rules.
Both-face completeness
An identity claim rests on both faces, because the MRZ and immigration details are on the back. A card shown front only, or a missing nationality entry, leaves the main checks unrun and warrants escalation.
Photo and text patching
Substituted portraits and edited name or date lines leave cut-line edges, resolution steps, and font passes that localise the edited region.
What TamperCheck checks on a Canada PR card
TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks across three layers and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with plain-English findings tied to specific regions of the document. These three carry the most weight on this document class.
Machine-readable zone validation
Check digits across every MRZ field are recomputed, and the encoded name, number, and dates are compared against the values printed on the face of the document. Forgers routinely update one and forget the other.
Portrait substitution and face-swap analysis
The document is isolated from whatever it was photographed on, then the portrait region is assessed against the card surface around it. A pasted or generated face rarely matches the substrate it was placed onto.
Date and validity consistency
Issue, expiry, and period dates are checked against one another and against the file's own creation metadata, which catches backdating and validity extension.
And many more checks
The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a Canada PR card. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks.
Who verifies a Canada PR card, and why
Canadian banks, landlords, and employers. In each case the document is being used to unlock money, access, or a legal status, which is exactly what makes it worth forging.
How to verify a Canada PR card in 4 steps
Photograph every face
Capture the front and the back flat at full resolution, so the MRZ characters and the printed dates survive close analysis.
Validate the MRZ
Recompute the ICAO check digits and compare the zone with the printed name, birth date, and expiry.
Weigh term and layout
Compare the expiry with the issue or resident date against the usual five-year term, and check bilingual labels and the DD MMM YY date format.
Run a forensic check on the file
The MRZ carries the structural story, and the print carries the edit history. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks including MRZ check-digit validation and patch detection, returning a risk score from 0 to 100 with findings tied to specific regions of the image.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Canadian PR card have a machine readable zone?
Yes, the back carries a three-line MRZ of thirty characters per line compliant with ICAO 9303. Its check digits and its agreement with the printed name, birth date, and expiry are the main structural checks.
How long is a Canadian PR card valid?
Normally five years, though one-year cards are sometimes issued while the residency obligation is assessed. An expiry more than five years after the issue date is a structural red flag.
Does the RFID chip help verify a card from a photo?
No. The chip holds only a unique identifier and cannot be read from an image, so analysis relies on the MRZ, the printed fields, and the card layout.
How does TamperCheck verify a Canadian PR card?
TamperCheck recomputes the MRZ check digits, compares the zone with the printed fields, tests the expiry against the usual term, and inspects the portrait region for patching. Uploads run through a single REST endpoint, are processed ephemerally and not stored, and findings tie to specific regions.
TamperCheck analyses canada pr card uploads with a hybrid forensic and AI pipeline tuned for this document class. Upload endpoints accept PDF and common image formats; class is inferred automatically. See the API documentation for authentication, async jobs, and webhooks.