People carry out document fraud to hide their identity, or to carry out a financial or benefit fraud. While checkers of documents have to look for forgeries and counterfeits, a Home Office official guide to document abuse makes the point that a common and easy form of such abuse is whereby the document may be valid but the person is not – it’s a look-alike, an imposter.
The new guidance document offers several examples of photographs and people’s images in identity documents, to show that while there are ways to check the person on the document with the person claiming to be the document holder, someone can look quite unlike the document image and still be the valid holder. Equally the document may be unaltered and the person claiming to be the document holder may look like the person on the document; but they are an imposter. The guide offers some ways to check: is the person as young or old-looking as they are supposed to be, according to the document? Does the signature of the person match what’s on the document? If the person has any distinguishing features, do they match?
The guide advises that you check the shape of the face; look at the features of the face individually; look at the position of each in relation to the rest of the face; and note that ears are unique to each person.
Also covered by the guide are document security features such as fluorescence that shows up if genuine under ultraviolet light; watermarks; and machine-readable characters; besides the general quality of the paper and print. The document takes you through what counterfeits may look like; and ways that legitimate documents may be illegally altered, so that the details match an imposter, such as substituted pages or photographs. Or, an ID may be invented to look like official documentation, but doesn’t come from any actual authority or country.
For the full 59-page guide visit gov.uk.
