Identity verification technology has become essential for businesses and individuals navigating an increasingly digital world. Two platforms that serve different but overlapping needs are Au10tix, an Israeli identity verification and authentication platform focused on document verification and biometric liveness detection, and facesearching, a face search engine that lets users find someone by photo across the public web. While both use facial recognition technology, they are designed for fundamentally different use cases. Au10tix is an enterprise-grade identity verification solution for businesses that need to onboard customers securely. facesearching is a public web reverse face search tool for investigative research, personal safety, and identity verification through digital footprint analysis. This comparison examines the capabilities, strengths, and limitations of each platform to help you choose the right tool for your needs.
What Is Au10tix?
Au10tix, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Israel, is an identity verification and authentication platform that specializes in automated document verification, biometric liveness detection, and age verification. The company's platform is used by major enterprises including Google, Uber, and PayPal to verify customer identities during onboarding. Au10tix's core technology involves capturing an image of a government-issued ID document, verifying its authenticity through forensic analysis (checking for tampering, inconsistencies, and security features), and then matching the photo on the document to a live selfie taken by the user. The platform also includes liveness detection to prevent spoofing attacks using photos, videos, or masks. Au10tix is designed for high-volume, automated identity verification with a focus on speed, accuracy, and regulatory compliance. It is primarily used in financial services, fintech, cryptocurrency, and online marketplaces.
What Is facesearching?
facesearching is a face search engine that takes a different approach to identity verification. Instead of verifying identity documents, it verifies identity by scanning the public web for a person's face. When a user uploads a photo, facesearching searches more than 100 platforms — social media, news sites, blogs, forums, and video content — to find where that face appears online. The results reveal the subject's public digital footprint, which can be used to verify whether the person is who they claim to be, to detect fraud and identity cloning, and to conduct background research. The technology is designed for speed and privacy: results are returned in under a minute, and the uploaded photo is deleted immediately after processing. facesearching serves a broad range of users, from individuals checking for catfishing and romance scams to law enforcement investigating cold cases to businesses verifying the identities of applicants and partners.
Key Differences: facesearching vs Au10tix
- Verification approach: Au10tix verifies identity by authenticating government ID documents and matching them to live selfies. facesearching verifies identity by matching a face against its public digital footprint on the web.
- Technology focus: Au10tix specializes in document forensics, liveness detection, and biometric matching. facesearching specializes in public web reverse face search — finding where a face appears across social media, news, and other platforms.
- Primary users: Au10tix serves large enterprises — banks, fintech companies, crypto exchanges, and marketplaces. facesearching serves individuals, investigators, journalists, small businesses, and law enforcement.
- Data sources: Au10tix relies on government-issued ID documents and the user's live selfie. facesearching relies on the public web — billions of indexed pages from social media, news sites, and video platforms.
- Liveness detection: Au10tix includes advanced liveness detection to prevent spoofing. facesearching does not include liveness detection — it is designed to search existing photos, not to verify live presence.
- Privacy model: Au10tix processes and may retain data as required by its enterprise clients. facesearching deletes uploaded photos immediately after processing and does not maintain a permanent biometric database.
When to Choose Au10tix
Au10tix is the better choice if you are a large enterprise — a bank, a fintech company, a cryptocurrency exchange, or an online marketplace — that needs to verify customer identities at scale as part of the onboarding process. If your primary need is to authenticate government ID documents, match them to live selfies, and prevent spoofing attacks through liveness detection, Au10tix is the stronger choice. It is also the better choice if you need a solution that is purpose-built for regulatory compliance, with features like automated document forensics, age verification, and integration with KYC and AML workflows. Au10tix's technology is optimized for high-volume, automated verification with enterprise-grade reliability and support. However, Au10tix is not designed for the kind of investigative research and public web search that facesearching provides, and its pricing is enterprise-focused, making it impractical for individual users or small businesses.
When to Choose facesearching
facesearching is the better choice if you need to find someone by photo and verify their identity through their public digital footprint. This is valuable in scenarios where document verification is not available, not sufficient, or not appropriate. If you are an individual who wants to check whether a dating app match is real, a journalist investigating a source, a landlord screening a tenant, or a legal professional verifying a signatory, facesearching provides capabilities that Au10tix does not offer. facesearching is also the better choice if you need to search across social media and public web content to build a comprehensive picture of a person's online presence. The platform is accessible to individuals and small businesses, with pricing that is affordable for non-enterprise use cases. If you need to verify that a person's public digital footprint is consistent with their claimed identity — rather than just verifying that their ID document is authentic — facesearching is the right tool.
Complementary Use Cases
Au10tix and facesearching serve complementary roles in a comprehensive identity verification strategy. Au10tix answers the question 'Is this person's ID document authentic and does it match their live selfie?' facesearching answers the question 'Is this person's digital footprint consistent with the identity they are claiming?' A business that uses both tools can achieve a higher level of identity assurance than either tool alone can provide. For example, a financial institution might use Au10tix for the initial customer onboarding — verifying the customer's ID document and matching it to a live selfie — and then use facesearching for enhanced due diligence on high-risk customers or for periodic reviews to ensure that the customer's identity has not been compromised. This layered approach is increasingly common in industries where fraud risk is high and regulatory expectations are stringent.
Au10tix verifies the document. facesearching verifies the person. In a world where fraudsters can forge documents but cannot fabricate a consistent digital footprint, the combination of both tools is a powerful defense against identity fraud.