Personhood

Confirming that a real, live human is present at all, before ever checking which specific person they are.

It answers the first question a verification flow should ask, "is there a live person here?", before it asks "which person is it?"

The verification layer, established through liveness detection, injection defense, and related biometric signals, that confirms a biometric interaction originates from an actual live human, prior to and distinct from matching that human to a specific claimed identity.

Personhood draws on several signals:

• Liveness detection, which confirms a real, present person is in front of the camera.
• Injection defense, which detects fake video fed straight into the app through virtual cameras or emulators.
• Presentation attack detection, which spots masks, printouts, and screen replays held up to the camera.
• Deepfake detection, which flags AI-generated faces.

In a verification flow, personhood comes first, followed by the identity checks:

1. The system confirms a live human is present.
2. It matches the face to the document or record.
3. It validates the identity behind the document.

Personhood sits next to terms that are easy to mix up:

• Liveness detection is one method that establishes personhood.
• Identity verification establishes who the person is, after personhood establishes that a person is there.
• Authentication confirms a returning person is the account owner, which depends on the same live-presence question.

For more, see Digital Personhood: How Identity Verification Protects Against Fraud and the Privacy Hub.