In this episode of CampusIDNews Chats, Tony Erskine, Founder and CTO of CloudCard, shares how the company’s Remote Photo solution simplifies the process of student ID photo submission. Since its start in 2015, the company has grown into a widely adopted mainstay across higher education, working with all major one card providers.

We’re making it feel like magical photo elves took a picture of your student for you and then dropped it into your one card system.

“Basically, we’re trying to make it feel like magical photo elves went and took a picture of your student for you and then dropped it into your one card system,” says Erskine.

Remote Photo eliminates the need for students to visit the card office, instead allowing them to upload pictures through a streamlined, AI-enhanced workflow. The system automatically removes backgrounds, enforces consistent sizing, and prompts students to resubmit photos if they don’t meet requirements.

From human moderation to AI assistance

When CloudCard first launched, every student photo had to be moderated manually. But as AI technology evolved, the company integrated automated classifiers to approve or reject submissions. Today, a photo goes through about two-dozen classifiers or checks prior to approval.

Some institutions rely fully on automation, while others keep human review in place.

“The students don’t always read, and that’s okay because I don’t always read,” Erskine jokes, highlighting how the system helps students correct mistakes without slowing down the process.

Incorporating into ID verification

Beyond photos, Remote Photo now supports government-issued ID verification. Students can upload a passport or driver’s license alongside their ID photo, and CloudCard’s system uses facial recognition and optical character recognition (OCR) to confirm identity details. This reduces the burden on card office staff and eliminates the need for in-person verification.

By blending automation with flexibility, Remote Photo not only saves staff time but also meets students where they are—online, mobile, and expecting convenience.

To watch the full interview, click on the image at the top of this page.

TRANSCRIPT:

I'm Tony from Remote Photo by Cloudcard and we are an online photo submission system that got its start out of Liberty University where I built their system in 2014.

In 2015 we launched right here in NACCU, so it's actually our 10 year anniversary coming to NACU and kind of like a homecoming.

So what do we do?

We capture photos, we make it so that the students don't have to come into the card office at all, especially when you compare it with mobile credentials or something like that.

We provide an AI-enabled workflow because to be honest students always don't always take the best photos, right? So, we'll remove background, we'll crop it, consistent aspect ratio and size and all of that.

And then on top of that we tell them when they do things wrong. Because you know what? The students don't always read and that's okay because I don't always read.

We don't hold them to that. We just tell them we can't take that photo and then we make them take another one.

Basically we're trying to make it feel like magical photo elves went and took a picture of your student for you and then dropped it into your one card system.

We started pretty small back in 2015 with three customers. So, a quick shout out to Pacific, ODU and Mercer University who took a chance on us early on which is super awesome.

And now we are, gosh we've partnered with pretty much all the one card systems. It doesn't really matter who you're working with or what you're doing.

We're kind of the standard for online photo submission in higher ed and it's really great to be here at NACCU and working with all our great partners.

From human to AI approvals

Early on when we built the first iteration of the system, every single photo had to be moderated by a human being, and as we got into the 20-teens computer vision was coming along. In 2017 we built as far as I know the first ID photo classifier where we were able to look at a photo and say yeah this photo belongs on an ID card or no it doesn't.

That has allowed many of our institutions to completely delegate that to what we call “Helper Robot” because you know he's kind of helpful. We've added on to that over the years so we've gone from a single classifier to right now there's there are probably two dozen smart filters that a photo passes through on its way through the workflow.

Some of them will auto deny some of them will auto approve but some of our customers still look at every photo because that's what works for their workflow and that's totally cool.

Verifying government issued IDs

Speaking of AI, we are now able to take a government issued ID like a passport or driver's license, and we can accept that at the same time we accept their ID photo. Then we do facial recognition, and we do optical character recognition to read the driver's license. We compare their name or their address or whatever it is that you want us to check for on the ID.

Again it allows you to offload some of the work that was previously done by a human where now they don't even need to come in for you to verify their ID. It's really helped out a lot.

Get in touch

If you're interested in learning more about Remote Photo or if it seems like it might be a fit for your organization, you can check us out online. The first step would be for us to schedule a quick 15-minute call to see if there's a fit and if there are problems that we can help you solve. We'd love to talk with you.