Effective know-your-customer method for secure and trustworthy non-fungible tokens in media assets

Abstract

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming very popular in a large number of applications ranging from copyright protection to monetization of both physical and digital assets. It is however a fact that NFTs suffer from a large number of security issues that create a lack of trust in solutions based on them. In this paper, we provide an overview of some of the most critical security challenges in media assets in form of visual content and then propose a specific solution for one among them, namely, secure person identification used in the context of KnowYour-Customer (KYC) with emphasis on liveness detection. The solution includes an authentication procedure that matches a selfie photo to a photograph of an identity document (ID). The system runs through a series of steps. First, detection is applied to extract faces from the selfie and the ID. Then a face comparison is performed to assess if they belong to the same person. While these two procedures are standard in KYC, a liveness check is also included so as to increase the security. The latter ensures that the user undergoing identity verification is in front of the camera and not a fraudster attempting to impersonate another individual. The system instructs the user to perform gestures such as waving hands or tilting head in front of the camera. The algorithmic detection of these actions during the live feed will reveal whether or not the user is carrying out the instructed activities. Performance of the proposed solution is then assessed under varying conditions.