Detect tampered and deepfake UMID Card (Philippines)

What a genuine UMID contains

The face prints a Common Reference Number of twelve digits in a four, seven, and one grouping, placed on the upper right, though some cards show the SSS number instead. It also carries surname, given name, middle name, sex, date of birth, address, photograph, and signature. The card embeds a chip.

Cards from different eras and different issuers differ in colour and layout, and the seals on the reverse changed over time. Because the number carries no public birth-date encoding, the analysis rests on number length and grouping, chip-area realism, and edits to the printed fields.

How UMID forgeries are made

• CRN length and grouping

  The Common Reference Number runs twelve digits in a four, seven, and one grouping. A different length or grouping points to an invented number.

• Issue-era plausibility

  New UMID issuance has ceased, with existing cards still valid. A card described as newly issued in 2025 or later contradicts that history.

• Chip area realism

  The card embeds a chip, so the chip pad should look like part of the printed design. A chip area drawn as a flat graphic suggests a reprint.

• Photo and data patching

  Substituted portraits and edited name or date lines leave cut-line edges, resolution steps, and font passes that localise the change.

• Issuer layout conformance

  SSS and GSIS cards of different eras differ in colour and layout. Mixing elements from different eras on one card signals assembly rather than issue.

What TamperCheck checks on a UMID

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.

• 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.

• Field-level forensics

  Every text region is analysed in its own right rather than as part of one whole-page image. This catches the smoothed and feathered edits that whole-image Error Level Analysis misses entirely.

• And many more checks

  The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a UMID. 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 UMID, and why

Philippine banks, lenders, and eKYC platforms. 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 UMID in 4 steps

1. 1

   Photograph the document

   Capture the front and back flat at full resolution so the number, name block, and chip area survive close analysis.

2. 2

   Check the number

   Confirm the printed number has twelve digits in a four, seven, and one grouping, noting that some cards show the SSS number instead.

3. 3

   Weigh era and layout

   Compare the card's layout and any claimed issue date against the era and issuer it presents as.

4. 4

   Run a forensic check on the file

   TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks including number format checks and patch detection, returning a risk score from 0 to 100 with findings tied to specific regions of the image.

Frequently asked questions