Identity Theft Check

On June the 7th 2006 the British Government’s Identity Cards Act came into force. This Act essentially detailed various crimes pertaining to possessing and/or creating and/or intending to use documents for false identities for criminal purposes and of using someone else’s identity, or rather the genuine documentation pertaining to their identity (like their passports for instance) for the same purposes.

These offences detailed in the Act apply to all documents that can be used as Person-Identifying Information (PII) – so passports, immigration documents, birth certificates, national insurance cards, driving licenses and indeed the identity cards that will eventually be issued under the National Identity Scheme.

The Fraud Act was also passed in 2006, coming into force on January 15th of that year, stipulating three ‘new’ ways in which fraud can be enacted:

- false representation, which includes dishonestly causing loss or the risk of loss to another with intent of gaining yourself
- failing to disclose information
- abuse of position
- obtaining services dishonestly
- possessing equipment to commit frauds
- supplying articles for use in frauds

Alongside the Criminal Justice Act of 2003 that altered law so that the same penalties for stealing and fraudulently using a driving license are comparable for doing the same with another person’s passport (making them both offences criminal offences that one can be arrested and imprisoned for), these are responses to the increased ease and likelihood of fraud crimes due to the IT based social systems we have in place, that make access to our PII all the more easy.