Detect tampered and deepfake NRIC (Singapore National ID)

What a genuine NRIC contains

The number reads as a letter, seven digits, and a check letter: S and T prefixes mark citizens by birth cohort, while F and G mark permanent residents, and the final letter is computed from the digits and the prefix. The front carries photograph, name, race, date of birth, sex, and country of birth; the reverse carries the registered address and a barcode.

Older pink and blue cards have given way to polycarbonate editions, and several designs circulate legitimately. Because the digits and the prefix together determine the final letter, a number that fails the computation was typed rather than issued, whatever the print quality around it.

How NRIC forgeries are made

• Check-letter recomputation

  The final letter is a deterministic function of the prefix and digits. A number failing the computation was invented, which turns the NRIC number into one of the cheapest structural checks in identity verification.

• Prefix and status coherence

  S and T prefixes mark citizens and F and G mark permanent residents, by cohort. A card claiming citizenship with a permanent-resident prefix, or the reverse, contradicts its own number.

• Photograph and field patching

  Portrait swaps and address edits are the physical fraud. Cut-line edges, resolution steps, or font passes that change mid-field localise the substituted region.

• Edition conformance

  Polycarbonate and earlier editions differ in layout and security features, and the analysis scores each against its own design. Mixing design elements across generations signals assembly rather than issue.

What TamperCheck checks on a NRIC

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.

• 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.

• Security print, foil, and hologram analysis

  A genuine security overlay or guilloche background behaves differently from a printed picture of one. A reproduction loses the structure that made the feature a security feature in the first place, and that loss is measurable even when the copy looks convincing on screen.

• 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 NRIC. 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 NRIC, and why

Singapore banks, fintechs, and telcos. 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 NRIC in 4 steps

1. 1

   Photograph both sides

   Capture front and back flat at full resolution so the number, check letter, and address block survive close analysis.

2. 2

   Validate the number

   Apply the check-letter computation over the prefix and digits. A failure marks a fabricated number regardless of print quality.

3. 3

   Cross-check status and fields

   Confirm the prefix agrees with the citizenship status claimed, and that the address on the reverse coheres with the case the file describes.

4. 4

   Run a forensic check on the file

   The check letter does the structural work, and the print does the rest. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks including check-letter recomputation and patch detection, returning a risk score from 0 to 100 with findings tied to specific regions of the image.

Frequently asked questions