Systems and methods for identifying a document with forged information in non-signature information fields

• US 8,005,273 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2010
• Issued: 08/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Computer Sciences Corporation (DXC Technology Company)
• Original Assignee: Computer Sciences Corporation (DXC Technology Company)
• Inventors: Mason, James G., Blinova, Katerina, Berkhuysen, Johan Willem Piere, Shridhar, Malayappan, Nugmanov, Babur, Bakker, Ronny, Houle, Gilles
• Primary Examiner(s): Bali; Vikkram
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zeilberger; Daniel
• Application Number:
  US12/767,585
• Publication Number:
  US 20100303309A1
• Time in Patent Office: 484 Days
• Field of Search: 382/115, 382119-123
• US Class Current: 382/119
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/10 Character recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/133 Evaluation of quality of the acquired characters
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/274 Syntactic or semantic context, e.g. balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/30 Writer recognition; Reading and verifying signatures

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for analyzing and assessing documents using a writing profile for documents, such as a payment instrument. A method may include providing a document to a computer system. In an embodiment, the method may further include comparing writing in one or more non-signature information fields of the document to at least one forger writing profile representation. In some embodiments, at least one forger writing profile representation may be obtained from at least one non-signature information field of at least one document that includes forged information. In an embodiment, the document may be identified as a document including forged information from an approximate match of at least one forger writing profile representation with writing in the document.

Claims

1. A method of identifying a document comprising forged information using a computer system, comprising:

providing the document to the computer system, wherein the document provided to the computer system comprises one or more information fields;

the computer system determining one or more variances in handwriting within an information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein the one or more variances in handwriting within the information field include written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals;

identifying the document provided to the computer system as a document comprising forged information from the determined one or more variances within the information field including the written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals; and

assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system, wherein evidence of fraud comprises at least one of the determined one or more variances within the information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system comprises performing two or more different fraud tests based on a comparison of one of the information fields, and assigning a different fraud weight to at least one of the fraud tests than to at least one other of the fraud tests, wherein one of the fraud tests involves an amount field, wherein at least one fraud test relating to the amount field is weighted higher than at least one other fraud test.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the compared information field is an amount field, wherein determining variances in handwriting within the information field of the document provided to the computer system comprises determining that, in the amount field of the document provided to the computer system, at least one of the written characters of the same type is a number added by alteration by a forger.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the compared information field is a courtesy amount field, wherein determining variances in handwriting within the information field of the document provided to the computer system comprises determining that, in the courtesy amount field of the document provided to the computer system, at least one of the written characters of the same type is a number added by alteration by a forger.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the compared information field is a legal amount field, wherein determining variances in handwriting within the information field of the document provided to the computer system comprises determining that, in the legal amount field of the document provided to the computer system, at least one of the written characters of the same type is a number added by alteration by a forger.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the computer system comparing handwriting in at least one of the information fields of the document provided to the computer system to one or more forger writing profile representations from one or more information fields of at least one document comprising forged information associated with a known forger,

wherein evidence of fraud further comprises the identification of the document provided to the computer system as a document comprising forged information based on the approximate match of the handwriting associated with the known forger with the handwriting in the document provided to the computer system.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein comparing handwriting in the at least one information field comprises:

the computer system comparing handwriting in at least one signature information field of the document provided to the computer system to handwriting from at least one signature information field of the document comprising forged information associated with the known forger in at least one forger writing profile representation of the forger writing profile representations; and

the computer system comparing handwriting in at least one non-signature information fields of the document provided to the computer system to handwriting in a corresponding non-signature information field from the at least one document comprising forged information associated with the known forger in the at least one forger writing profile representation.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein comparing handwriting in the at least one information field comprises:

the computer system comparing handwriting in an amount field of the document provided to the computer system to handwriting in a corresponding amount field from the at least one document comprising forged information associated with the known forger in the at least one forger writing profile representation.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system comprises assessing fraud using at least two comparisons, wherein evidence of fraud comprises at least a portion of the writing in at least one of the information fields of the document provided to the computer system to approximately match, at least one forger writing profile representation.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one forger writing profile representation comprises at least one writing variant of an example of at least one type of written information, and wherein at least one type of written information comprises a word type.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one forger writing profile representation comprises at least one writing variant of an example of at least one type of written information, and wherein at least one type of written information comprises a character type.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one forger writing profile representation comprises at least one writing variant of an example of at least one type of written information, and further comprising determining at least one of the variants with a cluster algorithm.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the document provided to the computer system is a payment instrument, wherein comparing handwriting in at least one of the information fields of the document provided to the computer system to one or more forger writing profile representations from one or more information fields of at least one document comprising forged information associated with a known forger comprises comparing handwriting in a payee field of the payment instrument to handwriting in a corresponding payee field from at least one payment instrument comprising forged information associated with the known forger in the at least one forger writing profile representation.

13. The method of claim 5, wherein the document provided to the computer system is a payment instrument, wherein comparing handwriting in at least one of the information fields of the document provided to the computer system to one or more forger writing profile representations from one or more information fields of at least one document comprising forged information associated with a known forger comprises comparing handwriting in a date field of the payment instrument to handwriting in a corresponding date field from at least one payment instrument comprising forged information associated with the known forger in the at least one forger writing profile representation.

14. The method of claim 5, wherein the compared amount field is a courtesy amount field, wherein a portion of the written characters in the courtesy amount field are assessed to be written by the known forger based on a comparison between handwriting in the courtesy amount field of the document provided to the computer system to handwriting in the corresponding amount field from the at least one document comprising forged information.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the document provided to the computer system is a payment instrument.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the information fields of the document provided to the computer system is a payee field, the method further comprising determining whether a name in the payee field of the document matches at least one payee name from a lexicon of suspicious payee names, wherein a suspicious payee name is a payee name frequently involved in transactions with high fraud risk.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing a correlation of information between an amount field in the document provided to the computer system and a payee field in the document provided to the computer system, wherein analyzing a correlation of information between the amount field in the document provided to the computer system and a payee field in the document provided to the computer system comprising analyzing the amount field of the document provided to the computer system based on what information is in the payee field of the document provided to the computer system.

18. A system, comprising:

a CPU;

a data memory coupled to the CPU; and

a system memory coupled to the CPU, wherein the system memory is configured to store one or more computer programs executable by the CPU, and wherein the computer programs are executable to implement a method for identifying a document comprising forged information, the method comprising;

providing the document to the computer system, wherein the document provided to the computer system comprises one or more information fields;

the computer system determining one or more variances in handwriting within an information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein the one or more variances in handwriting within the information field include written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals;

identifying the document provided to the computer system as a document comprising forged information from the determined one or more variances within the information field including the written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals; and

assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system, wherein evidence of fraud comprises at least one of the determined one or more variances within the information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system comprises performing two or more different fraud tests based on a comparison of one of the information fields, and assigning a different fraud weight to at least one of the fraud tests than to at least one other of the fraud tests, wherein one of the fraud tests involves an amount field, wherein at least one fraud test relating to the amount field is weighted higher than at least one other fraud test.

19. A tangible, computer readable storage medium comprising program instructions stored thereon, wherein the program instructions are computer-executable to implement a method for identifying a document comprising forged information, the method comprising:

providing the document to the computer system, wherein the document provided to the computer system comprises one or more information fields;

the computer system determining one or more variances in handwriting within an information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein the one or more variances in handwriting within the information field include written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals;

identifying the document provided to the computer system as a document comprising forged information from the determined one or more variances within the information field including the written characters of the same type being written by at least two different individuals; and

assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system, wherein evidence of fraud comprises at least one of the determined one or more variances within the information field of the document provided to the computer system, wherein assessing fraud in the document provided to the computer system comprises performing two or more different fraud tests based on a comparison of one of the information fields, and assigning a different fraud weight to at least one of the fraud tests than to at least one other of the fraud tests, wherein one of the fraud tests involves an amount field, wherein at least one fraud test relating to the amount field is weighted higher than at least one other fraud test.