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A recent survey by the University of Portsmouth has revealed some surprising findings about the state of recruitment fraud in the UK. The widely reported headline from the report was that annually, recruitment fraud costs companies across the UK £24 billion. The study also highlights some of the most extreme cases, such as the oil executive who was imprisoned after faking his way into a six-figure salary by claiming he had three different university degrees. However, perhaps more interesting for most companies is the section about what companies typically do to try to mitigate the risks for their organisations.

Most Common Types of Pre-Employment Checking

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the researchers found that out of the 49 employers they spoke to, 43 chased up references from people applying for jobs. A slightly lower number took steps to confirm the details which the applicant had given on their form, CV or during interview. This could mean calling up previous employers to verify job titles or asking universities for confirmation of degree results. Around half of employers also said they ran police background checks on applicants, but as many criminal records checks are restricted to a specific type of job, this isn’t always possible.

Less Common Checks

There is also a huge other range of checks which employers might decide to run on people applying for a job with them. Only around a third of companies look through specialist databases to confirm details which applicants have given them, and a similar number look at directorship databases, look through the newspaper databases to see if anything comes up, or checks the public records about county court judgements or bankruptcies. Although only around a third of companies admitted to conducting a trawl through the applicant’s social media accounts, this tactic is becoming more common as it’s free and quick. Obviously, the exact checks will depend on the type of role under consideration, but this study indicates that perhaps companies should be doing more to check up on people applying to work with them.

Current Employee Checks?

Most checking is done on people who are new to the company, and that’s understandable. But increasingly, companies are vetting their staff on an ongoing basis. In the University of Portsmouth study, most companies said that they didn’t do anything to check up on staff once they were in the organisation. So even when switching to a more senior position or applying for a position in a different location in the same business, references aren’t being checked, and information isn’t being verified.

One of the cases highlighted by the report shows up just how dangerous it can be to be lax checking up on people who are working in your company already. A major European bank made just that mistake when taking on an employee who had previously had a short-term contract with the business. The employee was later convicted of fraud, costing the bank over 5 million euros. This just proves how dangerous it can be to assume that just because someone’s worked with your organisation in the past, that they’re a good choice.

We’re all becoming increasingly aware of the risks which companies are facing in terms of recruitment fraud. In one recent study, 80% of CVs were found to have some sort of inaccuracy on them, from a slight grade increase on one exam result through to a wholesale fabrication of previous jobs. For most companies, the only way of checking up on people who have applied for jobs with their organisation is to ring up previous employers, check industry databases, look at social media accounts or chase up references. But could advances in artificial intelligence soon provide a better way of going about the process?

What Can AI Do?

Artificial Intelligence is already playing a valuable role in fraud detection in other industries. Most of us will have experienced getting a call from our credit card company or bank, asking if it really was us making a certain transaction. This is all down to artificial intelligence looking at patterns, working out what’s normal and what raises a red flag. The amount of data flowing through a financial services organisation is just too plentiful for someone to trawl through and try to spot when something isn’t right. Could the same principles be applied to recruitment fraud too?

Highlighting Key Risks

Data can help highlight the areas in a business which are at higher risk of fraud and losses. This can be done by looking at data from all over the world, comparing which departments in businesses suffer higher losses on average. Looking at data from companies with similar structures and in a similar industry could help highlight weak spots in your organisation and will help you identify which positions might require a higher level of checking than others.

Once you have recruited employees, AI can also be used in the same way as it works to identify unusual transactions on a credit card. Artificial intelligence can look at every transaction flowing through your business to help spot an anomaly, or perhaps help identify when staff are looking at customer files when they shouldn’t be. This type of software could help provide an early warning of something going wrong in your business, before you start to incur heavy financial losses.

Analysing Applicants

There is also some evidence that tech companies are going one step further, by using software to help analyse words and phrases used by applicants on cover letters or in application forms, or even by analysing facial expressions when candidates are filmed giving their responses to a set of standard questions. The idea is to compare traits exhibited by candidates against responses given by previous successful applicants in the same organisation. However, it’s not all plain sailing with AI. Many companies have already abandoned the technology in favour of more traditional methods as the AI software has in some cases discriminated against women, or people from ethnic minority groups. But as computers get smarter, and recruiters start to appreciate how useful they can be in identifying trends, the use of AI will be increasingly common in all recruitment decisions.

Uber, the app which has been changing the way the taxi market works across the world, has again had its licence to operate in London rejected. Transport for London has highlighted several serious concerns about the way in which Uber and its drivers work in London, especially concerning insurance for the cars themselves, and identity verification for the drivers.

Fake Identities

One of the most shocking revelations in the Transport for London licence refusal was that over 14,000 Uber journeys had taken place with a driver who had faked their identity to log into the Uber app. This is all down to the way in which the Uber software worked, which allowed an unverified driver, who hadn’t uploaded proof of driving licence, car insurance or a DBS check to upload their details as an additional driver on an approved account. This driver was then free to pick up customers.

Uber has responded to Transport for London’s findings, saying that the company is taking steps to close loopholes in its system and stop this happening again in the future. However, Transport for London has made it clear that they cannot be confident in the processes and procedures put in place by Uber in London.

Continued Operation

Although the news of Uber’s licence refusal was all over the news, the company and its 45,000 drivers are continuing to pick up passengers across the capital. There is a right to appeal against the decision, and while any appeal is being considered, Uber can continue to operate. There is also the side issue of Uber’s licensing in other parts of the UK; if unlicensed and unverified drivers can pick up passengers in London, does that mean they are doing the same in other towns and cities in the UK too?

What Should Be Happening?

Just as with all taxi companies, Uber has a legal obligation to check up thoroughly on the people who are applying to work with the company. There has also been ongoing legal wrangling over whether Uber drivers are self-employed or employed, but Uber still has the responsibility of checking up on people registering with their app before letting them loose on customers.

All taxi drivers, whether they drive for Uber, are self-employed or work for a longer established taxi company have to come up to a basic standard. Uber should be making checks on their right to work legally in the UK, that they have the correct driving licence and that the car they will be operating in is up to scratch too.

The keystone to all checking done by Uber – and all other employers – is to make sure that the person applying for the licence matches up with all the other identity documentation which is being provided. This isn’t always easy. The sheer volume of applications from people who want to be Uber drivers increases the possibility that someone will slip through the system. In order to regain their licence to operate in London, Uber will have to convince Transport for London that they have tightened up security in their processes and closed all previous loopholes.

The ongoing Brexit negotiations are causing high levels of uncertainty from employers about what exactly is going to happen once the UK leaves the EU. In fact, it’s still not very clear that we will be leaving the EU, and if we do leave, whether it will be with a deal or without a deal. It’s all very confusing. However, there has been some guidance from the government about the issue of right to work checks, which should go some way to reassuring employers.

No Changes Until 2021

The most recent information released by the UK government states that there will be no change in the way citizens of the EEA have to prove their identity until 1st January 2021. This will apply even if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. Although we talk mostly about the UK leaving the European Union, it’s the European Economic Area, or EEA which applies in this case. The EEA is made up of all the countries which are in the European Union, plus Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. These three countries sit outside the EU, but are part of the wider customs union.

New Responsibilities

The government is clear on what employer responsibilities will be in the event of Brexit and in any transition period which follows. Current identity verification laws will remain unchanged. That means that companies will still be fined if they are caught employing illegal workers, so managers and recruiters still have the job of asking for passports and checking that the person in front of them matches the official identification provided. That is the process whether the applicant is British, from a European country or from further afield.

The new clarification puts employers’ minds at rest about what happens to workers who lose their right to be in the UK at the end of their employment. Up to 1st January 2021, employers will not have to go back and check on the immigration status of any EEA national since the date of any Brexit, and they won’t have to check that the person intends to leave the UK if they no longer have the right to be here. The government also reiterates the need to keep high quality records about identity verification. Most employers take photocopies of passports, and these should be kept for 2 years after the employee concerned has left the job.

Temporary Leave to Remain

The government also intends to create a temporary status for EU and EEA residents who arrive in the UK between the Brexit date and 1st January 2021 to apply for temporary leave to stay in the UK, work and apply for whatever other paperwork they need to legitimise their stay. However, this arrangement is bound to form a key part of the Brexit negotiations should the government go back to Brussels and try to get a better or different deal. So although the government currently gives the above advice to employers about identity verification, there’s every chance that we may see further changes in the New Year.

Unsurprisingly, the British media generally concentrates on news stories about people who have come to the UK to work illegally, rather than experiences of other countries. However, this situation has recently been flipped on its head with reports that the Chinese government is considering a crackdown on the estimated 250,000 people working in China illegally as English teachers.

Strict Visa Requirements

China has very strict rules about what types of people can be employed in the country as English language teachers. Visa applicants must be native speakers of English, have a university degree and a qualification in teaching English as a foreign language. Teachers also need a health check, and a police criminal records check. All this paperwork takes time, and therefore it’s no surprise that some agencies are happy to bend the rules for applicants. There is a very high demand for English teachers in China, and experts estimate that as many as 60% of the teachers currently in China are not there legitimately.

Potential Crackdown

Anyone considering taking a job as a teacher in China should be aware that they are taking a risk. Although the Chinese middle classes are desperate for their children to learn English, the increasing problems caused by poor quality teaching or exploitative job advertisements are leading to the authorities considering a crackdown. Chinese legislation allows for fines of up to £2,200 for working illegally, a fortnight in prison and then deportation. In theory it’s the school employing the teachers which is responsible, but in practice, it’s the foreign teacher who pays the fine and ends up in prison. Is it worth failing foul of the law in order to get a couple of years working overseas? Given the wide availability of information online, could being deported come back to haunt you in years to come when a UK employer decides to Google your name?

UK Comparison?

In the UK we don’t import English teachers, and illegal working in the education sector is not an issue in this sector. However, there are several other sectors in which illegal workers are found more often than others. Restaurants, the hotel industries, beauty salons and other small service businesses often employ more illegal workers than larger multinational organisations with professional HR departments.

However, being a small business does not opt you out of your obligations to check up on the people who are applying for a job in your organisation. All employers have a legal duty to verify the nationality of the people working in their business. Most will do this by asking to see a copy of a passport, showing nationality and any immigration stamps and visas which might be relevant. Just as with the situation of the teachers working in the grey economy in China, there are stiff fines for illegal workers in the UK too, although the business pays rather than the individual. Legislation around checking the identity of those who you employ is always changing and will change even further depending on what happens regarding the Brexit process.

Details are still unravelling about exactly what happened to the 39 people who were found dead in a truck in Essex after entering the country illegally. Investigations are ongoing into the international people trafficking ring, which appears to have involved bringing container loads of Vietnamese nationals into the UK on fake Chinese documentation. The criminal case is likely to rumble on, with a trial date yet to be set.

It’s very easy to write this sort of tragic case off as nothing to do with you. However, if you run a business or are involved with interviewing and recruitment, it may have a lot to do with you. This headline-grabbing case has brought home how desperate people are to get into the UK and secure a job here.

People Trafficking

Many of the people who are brought into the UK in the back of lorries have paid huge sums of money for the privilege. In order to pay back the gangs who arrange the illegal entry, trafficked people are often put to work in nail bars, car washes or other businesses until they’ve paid their debt. However, people who make their own way into the UK, or just overstay a legitimate entry visa, are not allowed to work legally either.

Checking Identity

The responsibility for checking that someone is legally allowed to work in the UK lies with the employer, not the Home Office. Employers can be hit with huge fines of up to £20,000 for each illegal worker they employ. Therefore, it’s standard practice to ask people to bring their passports to interview. The issue of employers checking up on their workers’ nationalities and immigration status is controversial. Some employers resent being asked to do what they perceive as UK Border Agency’s job, but currently there are no plans to overhaul the system.

Two Related Issues

If you’re responsible for making sure that people applying to your company are legal workers, where do you start? Well, there are two key issues to consider. Firstly, there is a group of people who just don’t have any documents at all. They’ve never had a passport or refuse to show any proof at all. This is usually a fairly easy scenario to deal with.

A trickier situation concerns people like the people who died in the container lorry in November. They were all carrying documents, but they were fakes. How do you spot when a job applicant is claiming to be something they’re not? This is altogether more complex. Care should be taken over the identity verification process. It’s not just enough to confirm that the person has a passport which entitles them to live and work in the UK. Another step for identity verification has to be verifying that the documents are genuine, and that they belong to the person in front of you.

The good news is that you don’t need to be an expert. Immigration authorities will offer help and advice for those struggling with verifying documents. There’s also lots of information online about how to spot the common problems with counterfeit documents.

The growing issue of identity fraud has rarely been out of the news recently, in the wake of the bodies of 39 people being found in a truck in Essex. Although the trial in the case has yet to start, another recent case saw an Oldham fraudster jailed for 4 years and 9 months over illegally obtaining British passports.

Fraud and Assisting Unlawful Immigration

Mohammed Asif, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, was found guilty of the charges of fraud, and assisting illegal immigration. Asif ran an immigration advice company and charged people up to £10,000 for a passport which would enable them to live and work in the United Kingdom. Running an advice service is not illegal, and neither is providing assistance to legally obtain documents. However, Mr Asif and his accomplices went one step further. Asif targeted the relatives of people who had recently died, who were legally in the UK but of Pakistani origins. He stole immigration papers and other documents belonging to the dead UK resident and then used these to form the basis of fake applications for people who had no right to come into the UK.

In a further twist, it was revealed that Mr Asif was himself in the UK illegally, using documents obtained in the same way to get into the country. Several accomplices have also been arrested for related offences including fraud. The illegal applications were based on people claiming to be natural children of the two naturalised citizens who had died. Investigation into the applications began as far back as 2013, after staff at the Passport Office started to notice anomalies on several sets of applications all submitted through the immigration agency fronted by Mr Asif.

Implications for Identity Verification

From an employer’s point of view, this case raises a whole lot of issues when it comes to identity checking and verification. All good employers know that they have a legal duty to make sure people working for them are in the UK legally. But in this case, the people who had come into the UK using the passports issued through Mr Asif’s agency had genuine British immigration visas, issued to them and bearing their photographs and biometric data. No employer would have any reason to doubt their status in the UK.

Luckily, the law is on your side as an employer should you come up against who has been assisted into the UK by a fraudster. All that is required of an employer is that they take all reasonable steps to make sure that a candidate is who they say they are and has legal documents. In this case, all passports and other documents were indeed genuine, and had been issued to the people involved. The fraud aspect went much deeper than simply putting someone else’s photo in a passport. Employers should definitely be aware of the scams which operate, and the tactics the fraudsters may use, but are not professional immigration investigators. There is no need to go beyond the usual steps of looking at passports and verifying identity to the best of your ability.

A recent survey has revealed just how popular biometric verification is with the general public. In recent years we have all become accustomed to opening our mobile phones or opening apps by placing a thumb over the sensor. Kids across the UK are paying for their school meals with their fingerprints. Just how far is UK society willing to take biometric verification?

Mobile Phone Access

The study into how willing we are to use biometric verification in many situations was carried out by Equifax, one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies. Unsurprisingly, the main conclusion was that Brits are happy to use fingerprint recognition to open up their mobile phones rather than putting in a code. 71% were happy to use this technology or go even further by using facial recognition or eye retina patterns. Also, a majority of people were positive towards the idea of using biometric data when proving your identity at a polling station on election days or verifying that you’re old enough to buy a round at the local pub.

Security Concerns

Despite people being happy to use biometrics in some situations, there was marked reluctance to use the technology in other situations too. Only 46% of respondents said they’d be happy to use biometric verification to withdraw cash from a machine or over the counter. 45% would be comfortable using it to turn their car ignition on, and only 41% would be prepared to use their fingerprints or retina scan to unlock their front door.

Future Predictions

The survey also showed that most people think that we’re all going to be using biometrics more over the next decade. Fingerprints were felt to be the most secure form of biometric verification according to respondents, followed by facial recognition and retina scanning.

Equifax, the organisation which commissioned the study pointed out that adopting biometric verification when opening a bank account, making payments or applying for a job helps with security. Identity fraud is an increasing problem and having a way of securely verifying who you’re dealing with should also cut down on this. Furthermore, the requirement for some sort of biometric verification may cut down on scammers convincing customers that their accounts have been compromised and that they need to move their money out.

Biometrics in a Work Context

Biometric verification may also have an increasingly important role in recruitment in the future. Currently, it’s the job of recruiters to ask for identity documents and dig into an applicant’s background to confirm they are who they say they are. Biometric verification should be able to help with at least part of this process, by helping recruiters match up the person in front of them with the biometric data. However, it’s not going to help with people who lie on their CV or exaggerate their experience but may help in the first sift of applications. New government rules coming in to force in 2020 are going to put more responsibility for checking onto employers, so it makes sense to get up to speed with the new requirements now.

Would you know a fake document if you saw one? According to a recent survey from the Land Registry, fake documents is an increasing problem in house sales and purchases, with the average fake buyer scenario costing a seller £100,000. And it’s not just property conveyancing which is experiencing problems with counterfeits.

Fake Passports

Organisations across the UK have problems with fake passports shown by their employees. Right to work checks are carried out as a matter of course by all responsible employers, to make sure the Tgwoman was arrested for working illegally in Suffolk after getting her job using a fake Dutch passport. In April 2019, a counterfeiting gang was jailed for 13 years after producing an estimated 3,000 forged British passports and bank cards. In March 2019, a gang was arrested after an “Amazon-style” internet shopping site for fake documents was shut down in East London. The going rate for a fake passport is as little as £800, and with counterfeiters selling their products through social media sites like Facebook, it’s a problem which isn’t going to go away any time soon. There have even been reports of criminals offering “Black Friday” deals on fake documentation to attract customers in the pre-Christmas market.

Lettings Market and Fake Documents

New legislation came into effect a few months ago which means that landlords and letting agencies have to verify the identities of their adult renters, This is all part of the government drive to make it harder to be in the UK illegally and do things like getting a job or renting property. However, identity verification fraud is on the rise in the rental sector too. In 2018, lettings agents detected on average six cases of fraud per month. By 2019, this had more than doubled to over 13 cases per month. Could it just be that lettings agents are getting better at spotting fakes? Perhaps. But there are other potential explanations too.

Fakes in Recruitment

All job opportunities require you to show documents to prove who you are and that you have the right to work in the UK. As mentioned above, the fraudsters know about this requirement and will supply fake passports to illegal workers, or doctor real passports by changing details. Fake documents vary hugely in appearance. Some are highly professional and pretty hard to spot, whereas others are very poor quality.

What Do I Do If I Suspect a Fake?

The more documents you look at, the easier it is to spot when you are given something which isn’t quite right. The key piece of advice if you’re not sure whether a passport or other identity document is genuine is to keep hold of it. Don’t return it to the applicant. Seek advice from the Home Office or look online for the various security features embedded into passports and other documents to help you decide whether it’s real or not. With document counterfeiting on the rise, it’s more likely than ever that you’ll come across fakes if you work in recruitment or run your own business.

Whatever line of business you are in, identity fraud could get your company into a whole lot of trouble. Recruit someone who has lied about their immigration status in the UK, and you could be landed with a massive fine. If you decide to extend credit to a company which you haven’t checked up on properly, how do you know they’re going to settle your invoice? Ultimately, it’s your responsibility as a manager or business owner to work out who you are going to check, and how. It’s a complex matter and there are no hard and fast rules; each organisation will draw up their own guidelines depending on their needs. However, there are some government guidelines which can be useful.

5 Step Process

The government guidance splits the identity verification process into five main steps. These are:

• Strength – get documents to support the person’s claimed identity
• Validity – check that the documents are valid
• Activity – check that the identity has “history” and hasn’t just been recently created
• Identity Fraud – check to see if that particular identity is a fraud risk
• Verification – check the identity matches to the person who is claiming it

Evidence and Confidence

The government suggests creating a list of identity documents which you will accept as evidence and assigning a score to each. For example, something like a passport or driving licence which is only obtained from the government would be awarded a higher score than perhaps a credit card statement, which has no photo. Each organisation decides which score the evidence has to reach. An organisation which is at risk of identity fraud crime, such as a bank, will usually set the bar higher than other organisations. If you’ve dealt with a customer for a long period of time, you might not ask them to re-prove their identity each time they place a new order, as your confidence in the relationship grows over time.

Security Features on Documents

Many everyday documents such as passports or driving licences have built-in security features to make life difficult for the forgers. If you’re going to be looking at lots of documents, it’s probably best to get some specialist training in what to look for and how to verify that a document is genuine. The most common security features are things like watermarks, special ink which changes colour when the document is tilted, holograms, special fonts, background printing on the paper and features which only show up under UV light. There is also lots of detail online about how to verify that documents are real. There is also the option of using computer software to check for security features on any document.

Matching the Identity to the Person

One of the most important steps in the process is matching the claimed identity to the person in front of you. The identity could be totally genuine but belong to someone else. Check the photographs carefully, making sure they match. This is particularly difficult if you are doing the matching online. Multiple photos of the same individual could make things easier.