Can document scanning software read both sides of an ID card?

Yes, and dual-side scanning is a standard capability for modern document scanning solutions, particularly important because many ID cards and driver's licenses carry meaningfully different information on each side. The front typically includes the photo, name, and core visual zone fields, while the back often carries the MRZ (for ID cards that include one), a barcode (common on North American driver's licenses), or additional fields like an address that didn't fit on the front.

A scanning flow that only captures the front of a card would miss this back-side data entirely, which matters a lot in practice: for many driver's licenses, the AAMVA barcode encoding much of the structured data lives specifically on the back, meaning front-only scanning would leave a business without a meaningful share of the extractable information for that document type.

Technically, dual-side scanning typically works as a guided two-step capture process within an SDK's user interface. The user is prompted to scan the front first, then flip the document over and scan the back, with the software then combining and cross-referencing data extracted from both sides.

This cross-referencing adds a validation benefit beyond simply gathering more fields, since data appearing on both sides (like a document number that might be printed on the front and also encoded in a back-side barcode or MRZ) can be checked against each other for consistency.

Some documents genuinely only need single-side scanning, particularly passports, where all the relevant data (photo, visual zone, and MRZ) lives together on a single data page. But for ID cards and driver's licenses specifically, dual-side capture is generally necessary for complete data extraction rather than an optional extra step.

ScanDoc's scanning flow supports guided dual-side capture for document types that require it, prompting users through both front and back scans where relevant and cross-referencing the resulting data, while using a faster single-side flow for document types like passports where all the necessary data lives on one page.