Microsoft Brings AI-Based Face Recognition to Entra ID in Preview

The Verified ID service for Microsoft Entra ID is getting a new Azure AI-powered feature called Face Check that’s available now in preview.

“I’m thrilled to announce the expansion of Microsoft Entra Verified ID to include Face Check—a privacy-respecting facial matching feature for high-assurance verifications, which is now in preview,” Microsoft Entra Verified ID head of product Ankur Patel writes in the announcement post. “Face Check, powered by Azure AI services, adds a critical layer of trust by matching a user’s real-time selfie and the photo from their identity document (such as a passport or driver’s license). By sharing only the match results and not any sensitive identity data, Face Check improves user privacy while allowing organizations to be sure the person claiming an identity is really them.”

This one requires a bit of explanation.

Entra ID once went by the name Azure Active Directory (AAD). It’s Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access solution, and it’s used by most Microsoft 365 commercial customers. Verified ID is a managed service based on open standards that provides trustworthy, high-assurance verifications of identity credentials and enables privacy-protected interactions between organizations and users. It’s provided for free to all users of Entra ID.

Face Check is a new feature of Verified ID, now in preview, so it will be made available to all Entra ID users and most Microsoft 365 commercial customers. It’s essentially an additional layer of identity verification that’s designed to help prevent fraud now that generative AI has made it so much easier to spoof pretty much anything. Microsoft notes that Verified ID has helped Skype reduce fraudulent phone number registrations in Japan by 90 percent, for example.

Once your organization has enabled Face Check, you just need to visit the Microsoft My Account website (which is to Entra ID accounts what the Microsoft account website is to Microsoft accounts) and click “Get my verified ID” in the profile block on the home page. You will use the Microsoft Authenticator app on your phone to get your Face Check-ready Verified ID.

You can learn more at the Microsoft Entra Verified ID website or by downloading a Microsoft Entra ID Verified ID whitepaper (PDF). I suppose it’s only a matter of time before we see this functionality in consumer Microsoft accounts as well.