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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

Document tampering detection: what a vision model can and can't catch

#vision #documentai #frauddetection

Detecting whether a document — an ID card, a certificate — has been digitally altered is a genuinely hard vision problem, and it's worth being honest about what's checkable today versus what requires more sophisticated forensics than a straightforward pipeline provides.

What's checkable with a reasonable pipeline

  • Font and layout consistency against a known template for that document type — misaligned text or an inconsistent font is a common tell.
  • Compression artifacts around a suspected edit region, which basic error-level analysis can sometimes surface.
  • Metadata inconsistencies (creation date, editing software) when the original file, not just a photo of it, is available.

What's genuinely hard

A well-executed edit on a photographed (not digital) document, using competent editing tools, can defeat most straightforward checks. Be honest with users and stakeholders about this limitation rather than implying a pipeline catches all tampering.

See document AI for invoices: an extraction schema.

About Pranjul Rathour

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Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting on stage in a blue polo, with his Annapurna demo video on the screen behind him
Presenting Annapurna on stage

Pranjul Rathour giving a talk titled 'How and what I do', with demo videos of his products Vaidya and Annapurna on screen
Talking through the products he has shipped

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On the mic

Pranjul Rathour pitching with a microphone in front of a projector slide at CSJMU, Kanpur
Pitching at CSJMU, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-11.

Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:

Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
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