Skip to main content
Facial Biometrics verifies that the person in front of the camera matches a reference image. Unlike full biometrics, it does not capture or analyze an identity document.
The experience uses liveness and facial comparison. The reference image can come from Ecuador’s Civil Registry or from the client, depending on the configured mode.

​
What it includes

| Stage | What it does | |---|---|---| | Liveness | Confirms that a real person is in front of the camera. | | Facial comparison | Compares the selfie with the reference image and calculates similarity. |

​
✅ Checklist to start without blockers

  • Provide a public Terms and Conditions URL.
  • Enable camera permissions for the user.
  • For the Civil Registry photo mode, operate in Ecuador and have the user’s ID and fingerprint code.
  • For the Photo supplied in the flow mode, provide referenceImageUrl from the Biometrics node or Memory.
  • Keep the reference image available while the session is valid.
  • Biometric 1:N search is outside this product.

​
Reference modes

Queries the Civil Registry photo with the user’s ID number and fingerprint code. Available only in Ecuador.
  • Configure maxGovValidationAttempts; the webview defaults to 3.
  • The user enters exactly 10 ID digits.
  • The fingerprint code accepts 6 to 10 alphanumeric characters and is converted to uppercase.
  • The camera opens only when the Civil Registry returns the person’s photo.
Compares the selfie with the image provided by the client through referenceImageUrl. Available in any country.
  • The URL can come from the same flow or another flow through Memory.
  • The image must remain available while the session is active.
  • The user enters no data and sees no document steps.

​
Configuration

Configure the mode in the Biometrics node when creating the session. The mode is fixed when the session is created. Later configuration changes do not affect existing sessions.

​
How it works

1

Create the session

The Biometrics node creates the session in identity-service with the selected mode and, for client, the reference image.
2

Open the link

The webview reads the mode from /flow-state and, as a fallback, from details.faceReferenceSource.
3

Validate the reference

In government, the user enters their ID and fingerprint code before the selfie. In client, the node already supplied the image.
4

Complete liveness

The only capture is a guided selfie with liveness. The webview uses biometricFlow = ['liveness'].
5

Compare faces

identity-service compares the approved selfie with the reference image. The provider is AWS Rekognition.
6

Deliver the result

Jelou sends the webhook to the flow or client and returns the user to WhatsApp or callbackUrl.

​
Inputs and outputs

​
Session data

​
Final webhook

  • document_response.document_check is skipped with reason: "not_in_biometric_flow".
  • In government, gov_response includes the Civil Registry result.
  • In client, gov_response is skipped with reason: "face_reference_client".
  • facematch_result uses lowercase values (approved or declined); liveness and government results use uppercase.
  • A failed comparison adds imageDocumentUrl and imageLivenessUrl to facematch_response.

​
User experience

  1. Start and terms screen.
  2. The user enters their ID and fingerprint code.
  3. The user completes the liveness selfie.
  4. Facial comparison is shown without OCR, recapture or manipulation steps.
  5. The result returns the user to WhatsApp or callbackUrl.

​
Limits and considerations

  • The client image must remain available for the whole session; an expired signed URL returns reference_image_unavailable.
  • The flow does not capture documents, run OCR, or detect document recapture or manipulation.
  • Biometric 1:N search is outside this product.
  • Confirm the exact session duration and gov_entity_data format with the backend team.

Next: Configuration

Configure the Biometrics node and its outputs.