Standard Document Types
Most travel documents nowadays are machine readable, which means that the most relevant data is encoded in optical character recognition (OCR) format. The part of the document where this information in embedded is called the machine-readable zone, or MRZ for short.
According to the ICAO Document 9303, there are three standarized document types depending on the position of the MRZ within the document. These three documents are:
- Size 1 Travel Document (TD1)
- Size 2 Travel Document (TD2)
- Size 3 Travel Document (TD3)
Size 1 Travel Document (TD1)
The TD1 is mostly used in identity cards. Since the space is limited in order to make this document easy to transport, the MRZ is moved to the back, which results in the need to capture both the front and the back of the document in order to both assess its validy and extract the required information. Furthermore, each issuing country can add any optional content they want to to the document, which usually goes at the back of the document over the MRZ.
This is what a TD1 document looks like:
As seen in the picture above, the MRZ of the TD1 spans 3 lines, and each line is 30 characters long. The optional content would go in the area over the MRZ. Furthermore, there are check digits added to the MRZ so that the data in the MRZ can be verified.
The following image explains the different fields that are present in the MRZ:
MobbScan is able to extract and present this information, as well as verify whether the check digits are valid or not.
Size 2 Travel Document (TD2)
Although also used in identity cards in several countries, the TD2 is being replaced by the TD1 due to its more manageable size.
One of the main benefits of the TD2 is that it has the MRZ on the front side – making the back side less important – which translates into only having to scan the front of the document to extract the required information.
One of the main drawbacks of the TD2 is that its size is bigger than the standard card – which is also the size of a TD1 – and makes it difficult to carry in a wallet.
This is what a TD2 document looks like:
As seen in the picture above, the MRZ of the TD2 spans 2 lines, and each line is 35 characters long. This means that it is the smallest MRZ in a document.
The following image explains the different fields that are present in the MRZ:
Size 3 Travel Document (TD3)
The TD3 is used in most travel passports worldwide. This document, although being a booklet, presents a card with all the information on the front. This means that only the front of the document needs to be scanned, which makes the process easier for passport control officers as well as data extraction software such as MobbScan.
However, this translates into a larger document to make room for all the required information plus the MRZ at the bottom.
This is what a TD3 document looks like:
As seen in the picture above, the MRZ of the TD3 spans 2 lines, and each line is 44 characters long. Furthermore, there are several check digits added to the MRZ so that the data in the MRZ can be verified.
The following image explains the different fields that are present in the MRZ:
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MobbScan is able to extract and present this information for most TD3 documents, as well as verify whether the check digits are valid or not.
Supported document types
Even though MobbScan is able to extract the information from the MRZ of any TD document described above, there are certain localized documents where we are able to extract information outside of the MRZ, such as addresses. For a detailed list of supported localized document types, please read our supported document types document.