Powered with Artificial intelligence and machine learning, ICR has disrupted the traditional way of verifying various documents. It introduces efficiency and effectiveness at each stage of processing the information. Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) works effectively to convert handwritten text into digital files.

According to Accusoft “The success score for Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) for industries on average is around 70%. It means three out of ten characters are incorrectly read”.

Intelligent Character Recognition ICR technology is a subset of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that helps in recognizing and identifying hand-written texts. ICR works in conjunction with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which helps AI algorithms to learn the different styles and fonts of handwriting. It improves the system's accuracy to capture different printed characters.

The technology becomes more reliable as changes are incorporated during the transformation phase. The ICR software processes the handwritten documents as more data is available. The software keeps adapting to the neural networks developed by artificial intelligence (AI).

The software identifies the extracted features such as curves, loops, and shapes of fonts and logically organizes them. Therefore, it's quite helpful in scanning documents such as bank statements, ID cards, passports, consent forms, etc.

Understanding ICR Software

ICR software scans the information and extracts data from a document. It is integrated into the system that swiftly takes an input and converts it into a digital format. Here’s how ICR technology works in digital document verification.

• The customer holds their identity document in front of the camera. ICR software scans the document and extracts the relevant information, such as DOB, name, address, etc.

• The customer could also hold his consent form in front of the camera with a hand-written text. ICR scans and extracts important information from the consent form.

• Both information extracted from the document and consent form is verified and sent back to the merchant.

An automated data extraction saves time and costs with hiring database professionals. The extracted data could also be used by businesses to create predictive modeling to make the system more efficient.

Difference between ICR And OCR

OCR and ICR are the same but they both have a significant difference. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) encompasses a broader technology that includes both online and offline techniques. OCR recognizes both typed and printed text while ICR only identifies the handwritten documents. ICR is an extended branch of OCR that extracts and identifies handwritten text from images, letters, and other document types.

OCR works with a limited database while ICR contains a neural system that allows it to automatically update new data to the database. ICR keeps on learning new styles and fonts as it comes across different sets of handwriting. It deals with variable handwriting and intelligently learns the new input to improve the recognition accuracy. The software is powered to work with higher accuracy, when interpreting human printed characters. Given there are vast differences in how humans print capital letters and numbers, ICR doesn’t provide a 100% accuracy in accurately assessing the differences.

However, nowadays OCR Technology is used as a parent term for both document text and image text. But initial OCR systems are not sophisticated enough and require human interference to some extent. When ICR is compared to OCR, the results lack accuracy. The reason is simple, ICR is still adapting to various handwritten texts.

Advantages of ICR

ICR makes OCR more effective to interpret different types of fonts and styles. Each time a new data goes into ICR, it automatically adapts to the changes to extract information from both structured and unstructured documents. Various organizations and industries receive different types of forms and ICR acts swiftly and effectively to process customer data. It reduces the number of errors while extracting data, as most industries can’t afford a mistake.

Organizations can perform client onboarding seamlessly while avoiding any attempts with fraudulent activities. It offers great help in document verification that could save valuable time and money. More and more organizations are moving to integrate this solution, as it continues to work on multiple document types.

Now you might have gotten a good idea of ICR. But the requirement for ICR technology depends entirely on the requirements of each company. But it should also be considered that ICR is rather expensive than OCR. If your organization has a multitude of data then it's advised to consider a combination of ICR and OCR. They are the best option to process structured and unstructured documents because it would save time and cost with manual labor.