In our face recognition, a confidence score measures how certain ZipID is that two faces (e.g., a selfie and a government ID photo) belong to the same person. We express that confidence as a percentage or decimal (0–100%).
Confidence Score > 90%:
Meaning: The system is highly confident that the faces match.
Interpretation:
The two images likely belong to the same person.
96-98%: Extremely strong match.
90–95%: Very strong match, often considered "definitive" for practical purposes.
76-89%: Strong match, do not need resubmission upon human review
Common Usage: Many applications (banking, identity verification, airport kiosks) use a 90% or higher threshold to approve matches automatically. ZipID uses a highly tuned algorithm, and our confidence scores thus vary slightly from the norm. As federal law requires, ZipID presents the confidence score to enable the employer to make the decision.
Caution: Although our algorithm ranks in the 99.998% in accuracy in National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) real time testing in 1:1 matching, we do not guarantee that every result will be accurate. For example, if the image quality is low from either the selfie due to pixalization, lighting, face obfuscation, or the overall image quality of the government ID is poor, or either the selfie or government ID is manually uploaded, confidence scores may be inaccurate.
Recommendation: Please assure that whenever possible, your employee uploads a live photo of both the selfie and government ID, as the live uploads are calibrated to work with face match algorithm for optimal accuracy.
Confidence Score < 76%:
Meaning: The system has less certainty about the match.
Interpretation:
59-75%: Possible match, but requires review. Often flagged for manual review by a human.
Below 58%: Likely no match — system will often reject automatically.
Recommendation: Any score below 76% should trigger a request for an in-person or video conference as normally required, but also a careful review of both ID and the person, as these scores require more evidence of matching between the person and their ID.
Confidence Score 99 - 100%: likely the same photo.
Recommendation: Reject and request resubmission, as any score at 100% should trigger an in-person or video conference as normally required, but also a careful review of both ID and the person, as these scores require more evidence of matching between the person and their ID.
Quick visual:
Confidence Score | Interpretation | Action |
99 - 100% | Likely same image | Reject and request resubmission |
96–98% | Extremely strong match | Likely accept, human review a consideration, but likely necessary only to comply with Form I-9 law |
90–95% | Very strong match | Very strong likelihood a match; conduct human review |
76-89% | Strong match | Strong likelihood a match; do not need resubmission upon human review |
59-75% | Possible match | Possibly a match or request resubmission; may be less quality selfie or ID capture |
<58% | Likely mismatch | Consider rejection or request resubmission; may be poor quality selfie or ID capture |