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Proof of Address

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This guide presents a technical overview of Entrust's Proof of Address report, available for integration through Workflow Studio.

Introduction

The Proof of Address (PoA) report allows you to verify an end user's address by reviewing an eligible uploaded document. The PoA report cross checks the address information provided by the applicant with the details of a PoA document (such as a bank statement or utility bill), in order to verify the authenticity of the address. In addition, the report also asserts whether the document is supported by Entrust, as well as having a valid date of issue.

For a full list of countries and documents supported by the PoA report, please refer to the sections below.

Supported issuing countries

Documents issued by the following countries are supported for a PoA report:

Group A:

  • Andorra
  • Gibraltar
  • Isle of Man
  • Jersey
  • Monaco
  • San Marino
  • Switzerland
  • United Kingdom

Group B:

  • Canada
  • European Economic Area (excluding Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria)
  • New Zealand

Group C:

  • Algeria
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Bermuda
  • Brazil
  • British Virgin Islands
  • Bulgaria
  • Cayman Islands
  • Chile
  • Colombia
  • Costa Rica
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ecuador
  • Ethiopia
  • Ghana
  • Guatemala
  • Hong Kong
  • Indonesia
  • Ivory Coast
  • Jamaica
  • Japan
  • Kenya
  • Kuwait
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • Nigeria
  • Panama
  • Peru
  • Philippines
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Senegal
  • Serbia
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • Taiwan
  • Tanzania
  • Turkey
  • Uganda
  • Ukraine
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States of America
  • Vietnam

Supported documents

The following document types are supported for a PoA report, along with its issue date validity based on document issuing country:

DocumentGroup AGroup BGroup C
Bank Statement or Building Society StatementLast 3 monthsLast 6 monthsLast 6 months
Utility Bill (electricity, water, gas, broadband, landline )Last 3 monthsLast 6 monthsLast 6 months
Local Government Tax LetterLast 1 yearLast 6 monthsKenya only
Benefits Letter (e.g. Job seeker allowance, House benefits, Tax credits)Last 1 yearLast 6 months
Mortgage statementLast 1 yearLast 1 year
Mobile phone billLast 6 monthsSingapore only
General letter (financial institution/utility company)Last 6 months
Insurance statement or brokerage statementLast 6 months
Pension statement/letter or Property tax statement/letterLast 1 year
Identity document with addressSupportedSupportedLimited to certificate's issue and expiry dates
Address certificateHungary onlyTurkey onlyLimited to certificate's issue and expiry dates if present, otherwise unlimited
Exchange House StatementUnited Arab Emirates onlyValidity limited to the last 6 months
Accommodation or Tenancy CertificateLast 6 monthsLast 6 months

Please note: When capturing or uploading documents with two sides (such as Identity document with address), document_type should be specified and both sides of the document should be uploaded as separate documents, specifying the side property for each one.

Result logic

The Proof of Address (PoA) report can return a result of clear, consider or null.

The overall report result will be clear if all of the following are true:

  • the quality of the provided PoA document is sufficient to process it
  • the provided PoA document is a supported PoA document
  • the provided PoA document has a valid date of issue
  • the data provided by the applicant matches the data that is on their PoA document

The overall report result will be null if any of the following is true:

  • the issuing_country field set when uploading the document is from an unsupported country
  • the issuing_country field is not provided when uploading the document

Please note that if the report result is null, the report status will be cancelled.

The overall report result will be consider if any of the following is true:

  • the PoA document was not of sufficient quality to be processed (i.e. image blurred, data points not visible on the document). In this scenario, the value of the image_quality sub-breakdown (which is part of the image_integrity breakdown) will be unidentified and no data will be extracted from the document. As a result, the report properties attribute will be empty and all the other breakdowns will be null
  • the document is not a valid PoA document. In this scenario, the value of the supported_document sub-breakdown (which is part of the document_classification breakdown) will be unidentified and no data will be extracted from the document. As a result, the report properties attribute will be empty and the data comparison breakdowns will be set to null
  • the PoA document does not have a valid date of issue. In this scenario, the value of the valid_document_date sub-breakdown (which is part of the document_classification breakdown) will be consider. Data is extracted from the document and returned in the report properties attribute
  • the data provided by the applicant does not match the data extracted from the PoA document. In this scenario, the breakdowns first_name, last_name and address (which are part of the data_comparison breakdown) will have a value of unidentified. Data is extracted from the document and returned in the report properties attribute
  • there is evidence of visual fraud on the document. In this scenario, the value of the visual_fraud sub-breakdown (which is part of the source_integrity breakdown) will be consider, hence the report is consider

Report breakdowns and properties

A PoA report is composed of the following four breakdowns:

BreakdownDescription
image_integrityobject
Asserts whether the quality of the uploaded document was sufficient to verify the address
document_classificationobject
Asserts whether the document is a supported document type and the document has a valid date of issue
data_comparisonobject
Asserts whether the first name, last name and address provided by the applicant match those on the PoA document
source_integrityobject
Asserts whether the source integrity of the uploaded document is sufficient to verify the address

In addition, data points extracted from PoA documents are returned in the properties attribute:

FieldDescription
document_typeThis property provides the document type according to the set of supported documents
document_source_typeThis property provides the document source type
issue_dateThis property provides the issue date of the document
expiry_dateThis property provides the expiry date of the document
summary_period_startThis property provides the summary period start date
summary_period_endThis property provides the summary period end date
issuerThis property provides the document issuer (e.g. HSBC, British Gas)
first_namesThis property provides the first names on the document, including any initials and middle names
last_namesThis property provided the last names on the document
addressThis property provides the address on the document
address_parsedobject
This property provides a structured address
unsupported_document_reasonarray
The reasons why the document is unsupported (possible values include unsupported_doc_type, unsupported_alphabet, unsupported_country or possible_fraud).

Below is an example PoA report breakdown and its properties:

json
1{
2 "properties":{
3 "document_type":"council_tax",
4 "document_source_type": "pdf",
5 "issuer":"city of london",
6 "issue_date":"2020-01-01",
7 "first_names":"John",
8 "last_names":"Smith",
9 "address":"123 sample street london xyz 1ab gbr",
10 "address_parsed":{
11 "country":"gbr",
12 "postcode":"1ab gbr",
13 "state":null,
14 "town":"london"
15 },
16 "unsupported_document_reason": [
17 "unsupported_doc_type",
18 "unsupported_alphabet",
19 "unsupported_country",
20 "possible_fraud"
21 ]
22 },
23 "breakdown":{
24 "image_integrity":{
25 "result":"clear",
26 "breakdown":{
27 "image_quality":{
28 "result":"clear",
29 "properties":{}
30 }
31 }
32 },
33 "document_classification":{
34 "result":"clear",
35 "breakdown":{
36 "supported_document":{
37 "result":"clear",
38 "properties":{}
39 },
40 "valid_document_date":{
41 "result":"clear",
42 "properties":{}
43 }
44 }
45 },
46 "data_comparison":{
47 "result":"clear",
48 "breakdown":{
49 "first_name":{
50 "result":"clear",
51 "properties":{}
52 },
53 "last_name":{
54 "result":"clear",
55 "properties":{}
56 },
57 "address":{
58 "result":"clear",
59 "properties":{}
60 }
61 }
62 },
63 "source_integrity": {
64 "result": "clear",
65 "breakdown": {
66 "digital_tampering": {
67 "result": "clear",
68 "properties": {}
69 },
70 "visible_fraud": {
71 "result": "clear",
72 "properties": {}
73 }
74 }
75 }
76 }
77}

Proof of Address Report task

Similar to other reports, to run a Proof of Address (PoA) report, the dedicated Proof of Address Report task should be added to a Studio workflow from the Workflow Builder.

In order to verify the address data, the document's data needs to be compared with data provided by one of the following:

  • workflow input data
  • a Proof of Address Capture task
  • a Document Capture task
  • an Autofill task
  • a Profile Data Capture task

The applicant's first name, last name, address and a document ID are mandatory task inputs for running this report.

Below you will find an illustrated example of a Studio workflow running a PoA report:

Proof of Address workflow

More information about report tasks can be found in our Studio Product Guide.

Proof of Address Report task results

If you want to obtain the specific outputs from the Proof of Address Report task via the Entrust Identity Verification API (for example, the overall report result or breakdown results), you can manage this by configuring the Workflow Output in the Studio Workflow Builder. You can also retrieve all associated output data from a Proof of Address report.

You can refer to our Studio product guide for more information on Workflow Output configuration. Once set up, the output can be consumed by making a Retrieve Workflow Run call to the API. Report results are found in the output property.

Workflow Run results can also be accessed on the results tab of your Studio Dashboard.