The Persona Inquiry flow lets you securely and seamlessly collect your user's information.

Integration

Integrate the Persona Inquiry flow directly into your iOS app with our native SDK.

To integrate the Persona Inquiry SDK in your iOS app you can use Swift Package Manager, CocoaPods, or download the XCFramework for manual integration or for use with Carthage.

Installation

Install via Swift Package Manager

To install the SDK with Swift Package Manager:

Select your project’s Swift Packages tab
Click on the + to add a package
Add the repository URL https://github.com/persona-id/inquiry-ios-2.git, and click Next
Choose the package options version rule you want to use. We recommend the default (up to next major version), and click Next
Check that the package is being added to the right target and click Finish.

Install via CocoaPods

To install the SDK with CocoaPods, add PersonaInquirySDK2 as one of your target dependencies in your Podfile:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
use_frameworks!

target 'Your Project' do
  pod 'PersonaInquirySDK2'
end

Inquiry SDK latest

Please be sure to run pod update and use pod install --repo-update to ensure you have the most recent version of the SDK installed.

Manual installation

The SDK is released as an XCFramework which makes manually installing the SDK a straightforward process:

Go to the Persona Inquiry SDK Releases page
Find the latest release
Expand the Assets triangle and download the PersonaSDK.xcframework.zip file
Unarchive the zip file and drag the Persona2.xcframework folder into your Xcode project
A dialog prompt will pop up asking to choose options for adding these files. Please ensure that Destination has Copy items if neededticked and that it will be added to the correct target.
Click on Finish

Minimum deployment target

The SDK requires a minimum deployment target of iOS 13.0 or later. Ensure your app's minimum deployment is at least 13.0.

Update your Info.plist

In addition to importing the dependency, you also need to modify your Info.plist:

Navigate to your project's settings in Xcode and click the Info tab
Add a new "Privacy - Camera Usage Description" (NSCameraUsageDescription) entry (if not already present) to enable camera access.
Add a new "Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description" (NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription) entry (if not already present) to enable photo library access.
[Optional] If using our support for video verifications, add a new "Privacy - Microphone Usage Description" (NSMicrophoneUsageDescription) entry (if not already present) to enable microphone access.
[Optional] If using our support for NFC verifications, "Privacy - NFC Scan Usage Description" (NFCReaderUsageDescription) entry (if not already present) to enable NFC access.

Privacy Configuration

This SDK collects a user’s IDFV for fraud prevention purposes. In App Store Connect > Your App > App Privacy, if you haven’t already add in a “Device Identifier,” and fill out the questionnaire with the following answers:

Usage: App Functionality (covers fraud prevention)
Are the device IDs collected from this app linked to the user’s identity? Yes
Do you or your third-party partners use device IDs for tracking purposes? No

Usage

Build and Launch the Inquiry

The Persona Inquiry verification flow is initiated with an InquiryConfiguration. This configuration can be initialized with either Inquiry Template ID, Inquiry Template Version, or Inquiry ID. The other parameters are optional: theme, referenceId, accountId, and environment (which defaults to .production).

Please refer to the code sample below and replace TEMPLATE_ID with your template ID. You can find your template ID on the Persona Dashboard under "Integration".

This starts the Inquiry flow and takes control of the user interface. Once the flow completes the control of the user interface is returned to the app and the appropriate delegate method will be called.

class MyViewController: UIViewController {

  // This is hooked up to a button which starts the flow
  @IBAction 
  private func buttonTapped(_ sender: UIButton) {
    // Build the inquiry with the view controller as delegate
    let inquiry = Inquiry.from(templateId: "itmpl_EXAMPLE", delegate: self)
      .build()
      .start(from: self) // start inquiry with view controller as presenter
  }
}

Implement the InquiryDelegate for Inquiry's Result

In order to receive the inquiry result, please implement the InquiryDelegate protocol. For example:

extension MyViewController: InquiryDelegate {

  func inquiryComplete(inquiryId: String, status: String, fields: [String : InquiryField]) {
    // Inquiry completed
  }
  
  func inquiryCanceled(inquiryId: String?, sessionToken: String?) {
    // Inquiry cancelled by user
  }
  
  func inquiryError(_ error: Error) {
    // Inquiry errored
  }
}

Inquiry Results

The results of the inquiry are passed back to the InquiryDelegate, and are as follows

inquiryComplete — the inquiry completed
inquiryCanceled — the inquiry was cancelled by the user
inquiryError — the inquiry errored

Linking an Inquiry to your Users

To make it easier to find Inquiries in the Persona Dashboard, we recommend passing in your system's user ID for the Inquiry reference ID.

let inquiry = Inquiry.from(templateId: "itmpl_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .referenceId("myUser_123")
  .build()

Pre-writing to the Inquiry

If you want to add extra information to the Inquiry before the user even starts, you can pass them in as fields.

let inquiry = Inquiry.from(templateId: "itmpl_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .fields([
    "name_first": .string("Alexander"),
    "name_last": .string("Example")
  ])
  .build()

Starting/Resuming an Inquiry from ID

When you create an Inquiry on the server, you can pass the Inquiry ID instead of the Template ID.

let inquiry = Inquiry.from(inquiryId: "inq_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .build()

If the Inquiry has already started, you will need to also pass in the session token.

let inquiry = Inquiry.from(inquiryId: "inq_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .sessionToken("ABD1234567890")
  .build()

Overriding device locale

Our SDK will automatically use the language and region selected on a users device to determine localization. If your app has specific localization requirements independent of user's device settings, you can pass the localization directly to the InquiryBuilder as follows:

let inquiry = Inquiry.from(templateId: "itmpl_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .locale("fr")
  .build()

Geographical Routing

If you need to specify a geography for your network requests, you can use .routingCountry on your InquiryTemplateBuilder. Your data will always be stored in the region associated with your Persona account, but you will notice latency if your requests are routed to the wrong region. Our SDK will automatically pick the correct geography after the initial request but if you know your desired geo, you can request it to eliminate latency on the initial request.

let inquiry = Inquiry.fromTemplate("itmpl_EXAMPLE", delegate: delegate)
  .routingCountry(RoutingCountry.de.rawValue)
  .build()

Errors

In rare cases, the Persona Inquiry SDK may encounter client side errors that can not be resolved. When unrecoverable errors are encountered, the sdk will immediately callback to the main application with a debug description of the error.

The most common reasons the Persona Inquiry SDK will error include unrecoverable networking errors, misconfigured templates (should only be encountered during development), or failing to establish a connection the the device camera.

The error callback is located on the InquiryDelegate with the following signature: func inquiryError(_ error: Error).

Customization

Make the Persona Inquiry flow look and feel like your app.

Custom Styling

You can configure the styles that are applied to the inquiry template in the Persona Dashboard. For more information on using the theme editor, see our help article.

Custom Fonts

By default, the iOS SDK will use the device's system font. Font families specified in the Persona Dashboard only apply to the web flow will not be used by mobile SDKs unless you bundle your own font files.

The iOS SDK will use the font name set in the Persona Dashboard for various text fields. Note that the font must be bundled in the hosting application in order to be loaded at runtime.

For example, if you choose the font 'Rubik' in your template's Theme configuration, you will need to add a font file named Rubik.ttf (or any compatible format) to your project by following the instructions here.

Government Id NFC Integration

In order to use a template that includes Government Id NFC reading capabilities on iOS, follow these steps:

Include the PersonaNfc project in your app via SPM or cocoapods. You can include this in the same way you would the main Persona SDK. Make sure that the version of PersonaNfc matches the version of the main Persona SDK that you are using.
Link the OpenSSL (version 1.1.1900 if using SPM or version 1.1.180 if using cocoapods) library into your app as well.
Add the NFC capability to your app (target → signing & capabilities → + Capability → Near Field Communication Tag Reading). You will also need to add the NFC capability to the Identifier for the app in the Apple Developer portal.
Add a Privacy - NFC Scan Usage Description to your info.plist file, along with a description.
Add a ISO7816 application identifiers for NFC Tag Reader Session to your info.plist file with these values: 00000000000000, A0000002472001 and A0000002471001.
Pass in PersonaNfcAdapter() into the Inquiry builder for nfcAdapter. You will need to import PersonaNfc to access this.