Evidence of a Person’s Identity

Question #10 is, “What evidence do you have that this is all true?”

Identity documents and what the person in question tells you are not sound evidence of a person’s identity. A person’s identity is  rooted in their life — where they have lived, worked, gone to school, their relatives and friends.

Countries that have a national identity card system run the risk of the identity card becoming  the single point of failure by making the card the only source of identity information. When this happens, the crook can hide behind the card produced by a compromised system.

If you are in a position that requires you to test claims of identity, then you have to dig deeper for supporting documentation and verification.

The best place to start digging is the persons employment. This may be faked by providing fake companies with phone numbers that are answered by confederates. Check for the  existence of the firms before contacting them. A good place to start is to Google the firm’s phone number to see if appears associated with the firm and nothing else.

For current residence ask for utility bills and home insurance policies. A faker may have a utility bill but they rarely pay for a fake home insurance policy.

When checking references, always ask for the names and contact details of the subject’s friends and family. Of course, you rarely get this, but you may get  useful corroborating data, or you may learn that these people don’t really know the subject if they do not know any of his friends or family.