What is a Fake ID?
In short, this is the copying or modifying of identity documents issued by the government that are not authorised to be recreated by anyone.
Some of the most common documents that people try, and forge include, Driving Licenses, Passports, Social Security Cards and Birth Certificates.
There are many reasons for why people do this, such as, identity theft mainly carried out by creating fake birth certificates or passports in order to avoid being detected or entry restrictions into a country.
The chart opposite illustrates that passports are the most popular fake ID.
An Eastern European crime ring were jailed for a total of 27 years in 2019 for running a forgery factory in Stratford, East London. They had printers that produced tens of thousands of bogus documents at a time and the gang offered custom made paperwork to clients as well. The national crime agency officers managed to seize more than 3,000 completed identity documents, 3,500 passport-style photos, and 300 construction skills certificates, as well as enough material to create 40,000 fake bank cards. Read more about this particular case at The Standard.
This BBC article features how easy it is to buy a FAKE UK ID and PASSPORT.
A BBC London investigation has found that legislation aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from renting properties is fuelling a black market in forged documents. The undercover filming shows how a reporter was able to purchase a fake passport and a UK residence card from criminal gangs.
Fake ID Punishment in the UK
What happens if you get caught with a fake ID in the UK – Using fake ID is the same as identity fraud with a fine up to £5000 and maximum of 10-year imprisonment. If the use of Fake ID is for the purpose of theft then this carries a lower minimum sentence.
Using false or borrowed ID to gain entry to licensed premises or to buy alcohol has the same punishment as above, yet the reality most people just get their ID confiscated. As with most of UK law, it’s quite complex depending what your Fake ID is used for.
Is Fake ID Cheap
ID cards can be produced on a ID Card Printer but unless the card printer has access to security features it can be spotted as fake. Most ID cards have a special layer with holograms only seen under UV light to prevent them from being copied.
There are people selling Fake ID cards and Passports for £500, so yes I’d say this is cheap for a new identity.
How to Prevent Fake ID’s from effecting your Business
Importance of Business Security
Protecting your business from fraudsters and criminals should be a number one priority, as you don’t want unauthorised personnel gaining access to your company buildings. They could take peoples personal items and information to use in organised crime, such as, committing crimes in your employee’s name, but more likely criminals will want to steal your companies’ IP/data and equipment to use against you for blackmail, hacking and to sell on your company data to other criminals.
Also, if there’s an event like fire, you’ll be able to track your staff easier, this will also help to know which employees have access to certain rooms and buildings for their job departments.
However, as well as criminal attacks on your business you should be aware of the most dangerous attacks that come from employees of your business. A research report on data found that 75% of employees say they’ll have access to data they shouldn’t and 25% of employees are willing to sell data to a competitor for less than £8000. Restricting employee access to certain departments is very important to stop the important information of your business getting to the wrong employee’s hands.
Monitoring who goes in and out of specific office buildings and rooms using ID Cards will allow you to easily pick out the individual if a security breach was to happen so you will be able to restrict their privileges and make sure they don’t give away that important data to your competitors or criminals. Most people wear an ID badge with a card holder attached to a lanyard.
The best way to carry out this monitoring would be to give each employee an ID card that is programmed to only allow them to gain access to the areas you want them to. Proximity cards do this best as you as the company can encode the cards to how you want, this in turn stopping criminals being able to create fakes of these ID cards.
ID cards for your business can be personalised to your companies brand as well as giving the cards barcodes to scan for at your business reception to mediate who is entering and leaving the businesses premises.
A recent study of 1,013 people revealed that more than 60% of Brits are unable to correctly identify a fake passport. This is a serious problem for many businesses across the UK. Transactions such as buying a car, going on a date, renting a property, or even a small business owner needing to carry out a right-to-work check are all targets for scams and fraudulent activity.
So, having ID cards for your employees specific to your business will eradicate any risk of allowing criminals into the business through fake passports, driving licences or any identification that can be recreated to act as if they are one of your employees.
Spotting a fake ID can be difficult due to technology in printers being so high level in this day and age. Just remember that having ID cards for your business will help reduce the security breaches you get significantly as you have the power to personalise and encode your businesses ID cards. Please read our article on Proximity Cards which explains how they’re coded that gives you the access around your building.