# Detect tampered and deepfake License > Fake licences are caught by the elements a regulator standardises: the number format, the licence class, and the expiry date. A licence names a holder, the activity they are authorised to carry on, and the date that authorisation ends, and each of those is a separate motive to forge one. An expired licence gets extended, a restricted class gets upgraded, or a genuine licence is reissued under a different holder's name so someone unlicensed can trade on it. **Canonical URL:** https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/license **API document class:** `license` **Last updated:** 2026-10-07 --- ## What a genuine license contains A licence states the issuing body, the licence number in that body's format, the holder, and the class or category that defines what the holder may do. Alongside the class sit the conditions, endorsements, and restrictions specific to it, which is where a regulator records limits on scale, location, or supervision. The certificate gives the issue date, the expiry or renewal date, the territory or premises the authorisation is valid in, the signature and designation of the authorised officer, the issuing body's seal, and on many licences a photograph or other holder identifier. The class governs the rest of the page. Each category carries its own conditions and its own fee band, so a class printed without the conditions that regulator attaches to it is already inconsistent. Numbers are allocated in sequence, which ties the number's range to the issue date, and the term is fixed, so expiry falls a set number of years after issue rather than at an arbitrary date. Endorsements carry their own dates and those dates have to fall inside the licence term. ## How license forgeries are made ### Expiry extension The expiry date is moved so a lapsed authorisation reads as live. It is the most frequently attempted edit on this document, because the holder was genuinely licensed once and the only untrue thing on the page is four digits near the bottom of it. ### Class upgrade A restricted or entry-level class is rewritten as a higher one that permits work the holder was never assessed for. The conditions block printed underneath usually stays as it was, leaving a licence whose category and its own stated limits describe different levels of authorisation. ### Holder substitution The name, and where present the photograph, are replaced so an unlicensed person or company can operate on someone else's authorisation. A replaced portrait brings its own compression grid and noise floor, which sit apart from the certificate it was placed on. ### Restriction removal Conditions limiting the licence, such as supervision requirements or a cap on scale, are deleted rather than changed. Deletion leaves clean background where text used to be, and that patch of background often has a different noise character from the surrounding page. ### Regulator seal and signature reproduction The officer's signature and the issuing body's seal are scanned from a real licence and applied to another. A reproduced seal loses the relief of the original and prints at whatever resolution the scan captured, which is rarely the resolution of the text around it. ### Licences from regulators the reviewer cannot name A plausible authority is invented, or a real one in a distant jurisdiction is imitated, on the assumption nobody will check its format. These are assessed on print behaviour and internal consistency, since there is no genuine layout available to compare against. ## What TamperCheck checks on a license 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. ### Embossed seal analysis A physically embossed seal deforms the paper it sits on. A seal that was scanned and reprinted is flat, and the two separate cleanly under analysis even when they are hard to tell apart by eye. ### 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. ### Reference and document number checks Document, account, and reference numbers are checked for issuer format conformance and against every other place the same value appears on the page. ### And many more checks The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a license. 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 license, and why Regulators, platforms, and partners confirming authorisation to operate. 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 license in 4 steps 1. **Check the fields against each other.** Read licence number, permitted activities, and expiry date together rather than one at a time. Forgers typically change one value and leave the rest of the document describing the original. 2. **Inspect the file metadata.** Open the document properties and look at the producer, creation date, and modification date. A document produced by a consumer PDF editor, or created long after the date printed on its face, is worth a closer look. 3. **Ask for a second document.** Request a corroborating document from the same issuer or an adjacent period. Forgery effort concentrates on one file, so inconsistencies surface as soon as there are two to compare. 4. **Run a forensic check.** Manual review catches obvious edits but not field-level pixel manipulation or synthetic generation. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks on a license and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 within seconds, at $0.50 per document. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I verify a business licence is genuine? Query the issuing regulator's own register with the licence number and confirm the holder, class, conditions, and expiry it returns match the certificate. Where no public register exists, contact the regulator directly using a number from their website rather than the document. Then check the certificate for edited dates, since an extended expiry leaves everything else genuine. ### How can you tell if a licence is fake? Look for disagreement between the class and the conditions printed beneath it, an expiry that does not fall a standard term after the issue date, and a licence number whose range does not fit the year it was supposedly issued in. Visually, check whether the seal has depth or prints flat, and whether any single field is sharper or softer than the text around it. ### What is the difference between a licence and a permit? A licence authorises a holder to carry on a class of activity for a term, usually years, and travels with that holder; a permit authorises a defined piece of work at a defined place for a short window and expires when the work is done. That is why licences are forged by extending dates or upgrading classes, while permits are forged by widening what the work is allowed to include. ### Can an edited expiry date be spotted on a licence? Yes. Changed digits carry a different rendering and compression history from the digits printed beside them, even when the substituted font matches. The date is also constrained by the licence term, so an expiry that does not sit a whole number of years after the issue date is inconsistent before any pixel-level analysis begins. ## Related document types - Articles of Incorporation: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/articles_of_incorporation - Business Registration: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/business_registration - Company Extract: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/company_extract - Board Resolution: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/board_resolution - GST Certificate: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/gst_certificate - Trade License: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/trade_license --- Try TamperCheck now: https://tampercheck.ai/dashboard · Docs: https://tampercheck.ai/docs · Pricing: https://tampercheck.ai/pricing