Guardian Consent

Guardian Consent is a feature within Predictive DocV that captures consent from a parent or legal guardian before processing identity verification sessions for minors (users under the age of 18). The feature enables compliant identity verification workflows for minors while maintaining biometric consent requirements.

How Guardian Consent works

Without Guardian Consent enabled, if a minor completes a standard DocV flow, DocV rejects the verification session with reason code R844 indicating the user is a minor. The system deletes captured images and biometric data because biometric consent cannot be obtained directly from a minor.

With Guardian Consent enabled, the workflow captures guardian approval before verification completion, allowing the verification session to continue. The system may retain minor images and verification artifacts, and returns full verification results as part of the completed verification session.

Workflow overview

1. You send a RiskOS™ evaluation request with guardian information (given_name, family_name, phone_number) in the data.guardian object.
2. The guardian receives a consent link through Socure-managed SMS delivery or a customer-managed handoff flow.
3. The guardian opens the consent experience and either approves or declines consent.
   • Declined: The workflow ends and the minor can't proceed with verification.
   • Accepted: The minor verification link becomes active and the user continues through the standard Predictive DocV workflow.
4. The system returns verification results that include both guardian and minor Digital Intelligence context at the completion of the session.

📘

Phone Risk is executed against the guardian's name and phone number as part of the consent workflow. Digital Intelligence scorecards are independently executed against both the guardian and minor devices.

Start an evaluation with Guardian Consent

You initiate Guardian Consent through the RiskOS™ Evaluation API by including a guardian object in the request payload.

Endpoint

SandboxProduction

POST https://riskos.sandbox.socure.com/api/evaluation

POST https://riskos.socure.com/api/evaluation

Guardian fields

Include these fields in the data.guardian object:

Example request

{
  "id": "APP-123456",
  "timestamp": "2025-07-31T15:00:10.761Z",
  "workflow": "consumer_onboarding",
  "data": {
    "individual": {
      "given_name": "John",
      "family_name": "Smith",
      "date_of_birth": "2010-05-07",
      "phone_number": "+19998887777",
      "address": {
        "line_1": "1234 N College Ave",
        "locality": "New York City",
        "major_admin_division": "NY",
        "country": "US",
        "postal_code": "10001"
      },
      "docv": {
        "config": {
          "send_message": true,
          "language": "en-us",
          "redirect": {
            "method": "POST",
            "url": "https://example.com/docv"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "guardian": {
      "given_name": "Jane",
      "family_name": "Smith",
      "phone_number": "+12223334455",
      "docv": {
        "config": {
          "send_guardian_sms": true,
          "send_minor_link_ready_sms": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Example response

{
  "referenceId": "15357ffd-2fb7-4de8-b9ff-c3f3feb6deb4",
  "data": {
    "eventId": "5a150dab-27a3-436c-a488-3e8a8e33e5c5",
    "qrCode": "data:image/png;base64, iVBORw0KGgoAAA...",
    "url": "https://verify.socure.com/#/dv-sdk/5a150dab-27a3-436c-a488-3e8a8e33e5c5",
    "docvTransactionToken": "5a150dab-27a3-436c-a488-3e8a8e33e5c5",
    "guardianConsent": {
      "guardianDocvTransactionToken": "f3fd2f93-a3b9-430d-8f88-ac024dbe24ec",
      "guardianUrl": "https://verify.socure.com/#/dv-sdk/f3fd2f93-a3b9-430d-8f88-ac024dbe24ec",
      "childDocvTransactionToken": "5a150dab-27a3-436c-a488-3e8a8e33e5c5",
      "childUrl": "https://verify.socure.com/#/dv-sdk/5a150dab-27a3-436c-a488-3e8a8e33e5c5"
    }
  }
}

guardianConsent response fields

Guardian consent flow

You can choose whether Socure sends the guardian SMS directly or whether to manage the guardian handoff yourself.

Socure-managed SMS (send_guardian_sms: true)

When you set send_guardian_sms to true, Socure sends an SMS to the guardian phone number containing the consent link.

SMS message: Your minor has requested to have their identity verified by our service. Please click this link to consent:

Customer-managed handoff (send_guardian_sms: false)

When send_guardian_sms is set to false or omitted, you receive the guardianUrl in the response payload and distribute the consent link to the guardian through your own channel, such as SMS, email, or in-app notification.

Consent decision

When the guardian opens the consent link, they see the Guardian Consent screen where they may either approve or decline consent.

If consent is accepted:

• The minor verification link becomes active.
• The system triggers a guardian_consent_accepted webhook.
• If send_minor_link_ready_sms is true, Socure sends an SMS to the minor indicating their verification link is ready.

SMS message: Your parent/guardian approved your verification request. Tap to continue:

If consent is declined:

• The system triggers a guardian_consent_rejected webhook.
• The workflow ends and the minor can't proceed with verification.

Once the guardian accepts consent, the minor proceeds directly into document verification without additional consent prompts. Standard Predictive DocV fraud and liveness analysis continues to execute throughout the minor verification flow.

Verification response

After the minor completes the DocV flow, the verification response includes standard Predictive DocV results with both guardian and minor Digital Intelligence data.

The documentVerification object contains:

• digitalIntelligence — Device intelligence data from the minor's device
• guardianDigitalIntelligence — Device intelligence data from the guardian's device

Example response

{
  "id": "APP-123456",
  "eval_id": "6dc8f39c-ecc3-4fe0-9283-fc8e5f99e816",
  "decision": "ACCEPT",
  "tags": [],
  "review_queues": [],
  "data_enrichments": [
    {
      "enrichment_name": "Socure DocV",
      "enrichment_endpoint": "https://sandbox.dev.socure.com/api/3.0/EmailAuthScore",
      "enrichment_provider": "Socure",
      "status_code": 200,
      "request": {
        "..."
      },
      "response": {
        "referenceId": "a1234b56-e789-0123-4fga-56b7c890d123",
        "documentVerification": {
          "reasonCodes": [
            "I834",
            "I823",
            "I826",
            "I845",
            "I820",
            "I831",
            "I838",
            "I836",
            "I824",
            "I822"
          ],
          "documentType": {
            "type": "Drivers License",
            "country": "USA",
            "state": "NY"
          },
          "decision": {
            "name": "standard",
            "value": "accept"
          },
          "documentData": {
            "firstName": "John",
            "surName": "Smith",
            "fullName": "John Smith",
            "address": "32194 N College Ave, New York City, NY 10001",
            "parsedAddress": {
              "physicalAddress": "32194 N College Ave",
              "physicalAddress2": "New York City NY 10001",
              "city": "New York City",
              "state": "NY",
              "country": "US",
              "zip": "10001"
            },
            "documentNumber": "00000000",
            "dob": "2010-05-07",
            "issueDate": "2021-01-12",
            "expirationDate": "2029-05-07"
          },
          "digitalIntelligence": {
            "device": {
              "id": "3dc9169c-73e9-4b71-98a5-097abf1a863e",
              "globalDeviceId": "e30be72a-d615-496e-b330-ee439ed51d0c",
              "sessionCreatedAt": "2026-05-27T00:39:11.919221590Z",
              "deviceCaptureAt": "2026-05-27T00:39:11.925328436Z",
              "computed": {
                "statisticalId": "551af88cd3fefce9ad10f8456987542690fd9b9cacedc1d04ebd4434a1499963",
                "isVirtualMachine": false,
                "sessionAgeMinutes": 8
              },
              "network": { "..." },
              "attributes": { "..." },
              "history": { "..." },
              "behavioral": { "..." },
              "latestNavigationContexts": [ "..." ],
              "velocityMetrics": {}
            },
            "signals": {}
          },
          "guardianDigitalIntelligence": {
            "device": {
              "id": "8fae3a8f-9e7b-4e8b-b9d8-2f6f2f1a1234",
              "globalDeviceId": "d7b2e6d1-91f4-4a87-8f33-2d90e6e56789",
              "sessionCreatedAt": "2026-05-27T00:36:02.114221590Z",
              "deviceCaptureAt": "2026-05-27T00:36:04.882328436Z",
              "computed": {
                "statisticalId": "9f2d88bc3a1d4a762bc4d88722a8f3d98c011a782e44ab81fabc123456789000",
                "isVirtualMachine": false,
                "sessionAgeMinutes": 3
              },
              "network": { "..." },
              "attributes": { "..." },
              "history": { "..." },
              "behavioral": { "..." },
              "latestNavigationContexts": [ "..." ],
              "velocityMetrics": {}
            },
            "signals": {}
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Webhooks

The following webhooks can trigger during the Guardian Consent workflow:

These webhooks appear as case notes within the RiskOS™ workflow. For more information on subscribing to DocV webhooks, see DocV Webhooks.

Session expiration behavior

Guardian and minor verification links share the same expiration window and are governed by the configured DocV flow expiration time.

⚠️

Guardian consent is not retained independently of the verification session. If either session expires, you must initiate a new verification session — including collecting guardian consent again.

If guardian consent is not completed before the session expires:

• The workflow ends.
• The minor verification link becomes invalid.
• A new verification session must be initiated.

If guardian consent is completed but the minor verification session expires before verification is completed:

• The workflow ends.
• Guardian consent is not retained independently.
• Start a new verification session and collect guardian consent again.

This ensures that guardian approval remains tied to the active verification session and associated session risk signals.

Future enhancements

Future enhancements will support:

• Guardian information collection in the Capture App — for customers that do not already possess guardian information, guardian details will be collected directly within the Socure Capture App.
• Minor self-attestation workflows — for customers serving mixed populations of adults and minors without date of birth information, users will be able to indicate they are under 18 and automatically transition into the Guardian Consent flow.
• Custom SMS templates — configurable SMS message content for guardian notifications.
• Email-based guardian handoff — support for distributing guardian consent links via email and SMS.