You guys need to try, try, try to figure this out without the passport verification. I've spent a lot of visits to India and having to hand my passport to some local shopkeeper feels like an invitation for identity theft. People who grew up in the USA have been told their whole lives to protect their documents and this is a pretty big leap of faith for little benefit over grabbing cash from the ATM.
Edit: to be more helpful, a system like this would be more exciting for me - Upload the passport in app, the passport is verified only by a salaried and background-checked (you know, like a police clearance certificate) staff that is a employee of your company (not a third party or contractor). Have a clearly written policy about record keeping, security of the storage, pursue legal charges against employees who don't adhere to privacy policy. Etc.
Edit: to be more helpful, a system like this would be more exciting for me - Upload the passport in app, the passport is verified only by a salaried and background-checked (you know, like a police clearance certificate) staff that is a employee of your company (not a third party or contractor). Have a clearly written policy about record keeping, security of the storage, pursue legal charges against employees who don't adhere to privacy policy. Etc.