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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.

Many different companies need to check up on the ages of their staff and customers, and for many reasons. When it comes to employing someone, there are all sorts of restrictions on working hours for under 16s. People under the age of 18 can’t serve alcohol in a pub, or work with dangerous chemicals. Similar restrictions are often placed on customers. Someone hiring a car might have to be over 25, and many different clubs and bars operate an over 21 only policy. So, it’s very important to be able to verify someone’s age. Most of us carry documents which show our date of birth, and it’s common practice for employers to ask to see them before we start work, or to be asked for ID when buying an age restricted item. But how do you know the documents are genuine?

ID Fraud

There’s a growing problem in the UK with identity fraud. At one end of the scale you have a teenager borrowing a mate’s passport to try to get alcohol in the supermarket – it’s hardly the crime of the century. However, there are also some much more serious issues around identity fraud, people trafficking, modern day slavery and organised crime. So rather than hazarding a guess at someone’s age from their appearance, most companies have decided to implement a robust age verification policy to make sure they are keeping on the right side of the law.

Checking Someone’s Age

Whether you’re checking the age of a job applicant or a customer, the process is the same. The best way of verifying their age is to see some sort of official document, preferably with a photograph, which clearly states their date of birth. The best examples are things like passport, driving licence or the national identity card from another country. There are other ways; for example, someone under the age of 18 can’t get a credit card or a loan, so seeing and verifying bills or statements can prove that they are over this age, if not their exact age. The trick is being able to separate the genuine documents from the fakes and this takes some skill.

As there is such a wide range of identity documents which can be used to prove who you are and how old you are, many companies choose to outsource the checking to skilled professionals. These third-party companies do nothing but verifying documents and identities, and are quick to spot when something isn’t quite right. They might also be able to help you draw up guidelines for your own staff when checking customers or job applicants.

Front Line Staff

Depending on the organisation and the potential consequences of getting the age checking wrong, it might be wise to train all staff on what to look for. Often, companies restrict the type of identity documents they will accept as proof of age. Staff can then gain experience in checking one type of ID only. Training on the security features of that particular type of ID can help them detect anomalies.

Know Your Customer – often abbreviated to KYC – describes the process which a company goes through in checking out a customer before deciding whether to do business with them. KYC doesn’t apply to businesses where customers pay before they receive goods or services. It is really only relevant to situations where companies supply goods or services along with an invoice, hoping that the bill will be settled after 30 or 60 days. Not getting paid can dramatically affect a company’s cashflow, and in the worst-case scenario, force an organisation into liquidation. So many organisations choose to implement a robust KYC checking process to avoid dealing with risky customers in the first place.

Why is KYC so important?

Going back a few years, most organisations had local customers. A supplier of, for example, paint would sell to wholesalers and decorators in their local area. They knew their customers personally, with relationships built up over years. However, the economy is now global. Most companies are still dealing with their local customer base, but also fulfilling orders from around the globe. And this is where KYC comes in. If your business receives a huge order from India, Argentina or South Africa, should you send the goods?

The other consideration is money laundering regulations. Under UK law and in most of the rest of Europe, there are rules about dealing with companies overseas. A UK supplier would have to establish details such as registered address and names of directors before receiving large sums in payments for goods from overseas. In addition, there are all manner of rules and restrictions against doing business with organisations in specific countries, or in specific market sectors. If you fall foul of sanctions, then there could be stiff financial penalties too.

Verifying Company Identity

In many ways, the KYC process is like checking the identity of an individual. Rather than asking to see a passport and driving licence, suppliers might be asking for company registration certificates, lists of directors and doing searches on the local equivalent of Companies House. Nothing which a customer tells you should be taken on face value. Most customers, both in the UK and overseas, are more than happy to send you copies of their certificates of incorporation and details of their directors. The trick is spotting the fake documents among the piles of real ones.

This isn’t always easy, and many smaller businesses choose to outsource verification to expert companies instead. These companies have people spending all day, every day vetting companies overseas. They know exactly what to look for, and which databases to search for reliable information. KYC is the art of looking at all the data you have on a customer overseas, weighing up how important and significant that data is, and then making the decision whether to go ahead with the deal or not. Companies which are dealing with overseas customers or suppliers on a regular basis should have a written Know Your Customer policy and make this available to everyone in the company.

Would you know a forged passport or bank statement if you saw one? Most of us would like to think that we’d be able to spot a fake at a glance. But the reality is that it’s often not so simple. Identity fraudsters are getting smarter than ever and not checking documents properly could cost your company dear. Let someone with fake ID drive off in an expensive new hire car, and you stand little chance of ever seeing it – or them – again. Similarly, if you’re hiring a new employee, you want to make sure that they are who they say they are.

It’s important to remember that document verification and document certification isn’t the same thing. A “certified document” just means that a scan or photocopied document is a true reflection of the original document. This is usually used when people don’t want to send valuable originals through the post. The verification process is a deeper level of checking into the authenticity of the documents, and whether they match the identity of the person presenting them.

What does the process involve?

Document verification, as the name suggests, is about checking the documents which are presented to you by a customer or employee. These documents are usually officially recognised, government documents such as your birth certificate, driving licence and passport. Organisations must make sure that the documents they are shown are genuine and match the person presenting them. There are a few ways organisations can do this, but it really boils down to two key choices: doing it inhouse, or contracting out the work to a third party. There are advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Doing Document Verification In-House

If you decide to take on the role of document verification in house, then there are a number of advantages to consider. If you are processing a large number of new employees or applications each month, then it could be more cost effective to employ someone for the task tan outsourcing the job to someone else. In addition, keeping the checks in house give you total control over what happens, and how. However, smaller companies might not process the volume of checks to make it someone’s full time job. This also means that whoever is in charge of doing the checks can’t develop the “expert eye” which is often needed to pick up the subtle differences which indicate something is wrong.

Subcontracting Document Verification

Smaller organisations often choose to get another organisation to manage their document checking for them. It’s quicker, less hassle and you have a professional set of eyes looking over your paperwork. The downside to getting this high level of professional service is the cost, but this might not be as high as you’d think. Many third-party organisations can access other publicly available information to cross check the information on your documents, such as the electoral register. Others can look at credit file history and other databases to give extra information on the person presenting the documentation.

Would it surprise you that in 2016 there were over 173,000 cases of identity fraud detected in the UK? And these are just the cases which were reported to the police. The true extent of the problem could be much larger. There are many situations in which an organisation might want to check the identity documents of people the deal with, either customers or prospective staff. If your company is sloppy in checking the identity of people you are dealing with, this could result in substantial losses – both financial and in reputation. Checking documents is an art rather than a science, with several aspects to consider.

Four Types of Document Fraud

There are lots of different ways in which criminals could try to take advantage of your company using identity fraud. Experts classify the wider “identity fraud” crime into four main categories:

• Impersonation – this is when genuine documents are used by someone else.
• Counterfeit – these are documents which are wholly fake, and which have been made to look just like the originals.
• Forgeries – although this term is often used interchangeably with counterfeit, in document terms it means a genuine document which has been altered, such as putting in a new photograph, or changing a date of birth.
• Pseudo-documents – these are documents which look official and are designed to deceive, but which have no official standing.

Spotting Dodgy Documents

Spotting good fakes, counterfeits and pseudo-documents is not always easy. It’s a skill which can take many years to develop. However, all governments around the world have built-in security features in their documents which should give a starting point for checks. Furthermore, you can easily use the internet to check up on the authenticity of documents and find out what sort of security marks you should be looking for. The main security features built into official documents are:

• Watermarks – these are patterns or pictures which are woven into the paper as it is being printed. If you hold up paper to the light, the watermark is usually clearly visible.
• Printing – many documents use raised printing which feels rough or bumpy when you run your fingers over it.
• Ink – documents might also use optical variable ink. This special fluid can appear to be a different colour depending on how you look at it.
• UV – ultraviolet light is often used to show up hidden security features in a document such as security fibres in the paper or hidden patterns usually invisible.

The easiest way of spotting a dodgy document is when you have a genuine one for comparison. If that’s not possible, then run through the various security features which you know are in the document, checking carefully for each one. Usually, there will be pictures online to help you with this. If you are unsure about any documents don’t return them to the person who has given them to you; retain them and get advice on what to do next. Most often, this means turning over fakes to the police.