# Detect tampered and deepfake PAN Card > A PAN card is the physical credential for India's Permanent Account Number, the ten-character taxpayer identifier the Income Tax Department assigns to individuals and companies, and it anchors KYC at banks, brokers, and employers. The number obeys a strict grammar, so a card whose number breaks the pattern was fabricated by someone who did not know the format. The other common fraud swaps the photograph or signature on a genuinely issued card to redirect it to a new holder. **Canonical URL:** https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/pan_card **API document class:** `pan_card` --- ## What a genuine pan card contains The identifier reads as five letters, four digits, and one letter: the fourth character encodes the holder class (P for an individual, C for a company, H for a Hindu undivided family), and the fifth is the first letter of the holder's surname or the entity's name. The card adds photograph, signature, name, father's name for individuals, and date of birth or incorporation. Physical cards come from two channels, Protean (formerly NSDL e-Gov) and UTIITSL, whose layouts differ while carrying the same fields, and the paperless e-PAN arrives as a digitally signed PDF from the same channels. A reissued card keeps the same number, so two cards with different numbers claiming one person is a compliance question rather than a routine replacement. ## How pan card forgeries are made ### Number grammar Every PAN satisfies the five-letter, four-digit, one-letter pattern, with the fourth character naming the holder class and the fifth matching the surname initial. Violations of the structure, or a company-class fourth letter on a card carrying an individual's photograph, mean the number was invented. ### Character-level typography Substituted digits or letters usually arrive from a different font pass. Width variation, baseline drift, or spacing that changes mid-number exposes a hand-edited identifier even when the surrounding print is clean. ### Channel layout conformance Protean, UTIITSL, and e-PAN editions each place fields in known positions with their own typography. A claimed e-PAN showing physical-card layout, or a card mixing both channels' design elements, was assembled from templates. ### Photo and signature patching Redirecting a legitimately issued card to a new holder means swapping the photograph or signature, which leaves cut-line edges, resolution steps, or sharpening halos around the patched region. ### Cross-field agreement The printed name, father's name, and birth date must cohere with the surname initial encoded in the number's fifth character, a cheap structural check that forgers routinely fail. ## What TamperCheck checks on a pan 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. ### 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. ### Signature forgery analysis Signature regions are assessed for ink consistency and for how the stroke sits on the page, which distinguishes a genuine pen stroke from a pasted image of one. ### And many more checks The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a pan 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 pan card, and why Banks, brokers, mutual funds, and property registrars. 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 pan card in 4 steps 1. **Photograph the card.** Shoot both sides straight on at full resolution so the number's letterforms survive character-level analysis, and avoid cropping the signature or photograph edges. 2. **Parse the number.** Confirm the five-letter, four-digit, one-letter grammar and that the fourth character fits the holder shown; the fifth character should match the printed surname's first letter. 3. **Compare the fields.** Read name, father's name, and date of birth together. Internal contradictions, such as a surname initial that disagrees with the printed name, are structural failures no print quality can excuse. 4. **Run a forensic check on the file.** Number grammar catches invented identifiers, but patched photos and signatures are pixel-level work. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks on the grammar, the typography, and the patched regions, returning a risk score from 0 to 100 with findings tied to specific regions of the image. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does the fourth character in a PAN tell you? It names the holder class: P for an individual, C for a company, H for a Hindu undivided family, and so on. A fourth character that contradicts the card's photograph or name field is an internal inconsistency worth treating as a fabrication signal. ### Is a printed e-PAN acceptable for KYC? Yes, the e-PAN is a legally valid credential with the same ten-character number. It is digitally signed and laid out differently from the physical card, so verifiers should expect a distinct format rather than a scan of the card design. ### Why would one person hold two PAN cards? Holding two active PANs is an offence, but reissues replace a damaged or updated card under the same number. Two cards for one person with different numbers is the combination worth escalating, while a single reissued card is routine. ### How does TamperCheck handle PAN cards? TamperCheck applies the structural grammar of the number, inspects character-level typography for substituted digits, and checks the photograph and signature regions for patching. Analysis is a single REST endpoint call, the image is processed ephemerally and not stored, and findings reference the exact card regions involved. ## Related document types - TamperCheck Forensic Report: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/forensic_analysis_report - Unknown: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/unknown --- Try TamperCheck now: https://tampercheck.ai/dashboard · Docs: https://tampercheck.ai/docs · Pricing: https://tampercheck.ai/pricing