1. A system for extracting information from an identity document comprising at least one light source for illuminating the identity document; at least one digital camera comprising a lens and a two-dimensional sensor array for acquiring at least one two-dimensional image of the identity document; and a processor for processing said at least one two-dimensional image, said processor configured to run an optical character recognition (OCR) routine for extracting textual information from the identity document in the form of alphanumerical information, wherein said extracting textual information comprises the following steps: a) determining boundaries between text and background based on minimum contrast between the character and other colored data on the identity document; b) extracting black and white glyphs using at least a portion of said determined boundaries; c) applying said OCR routine on said black and white glyphs, thereby recognizing symbols and characters; and d) sending said recognized symbols and characters as alphanumerical information.