Identity document forgery

Documents that have been forged in this way include driver's licenses (historically forged or altered as an attempt to conceal the fact that persons desiring to purchase alcohol are under the legal drinking age); birth certificates and Social Security cards (likely used in identity theft schemes or to defraud the government); and passports (used to evade restrictions on entry into a particular country).

[3] Such falsified documents can be used for identity theft, age deception, illegal immigration, organized crime, and espionage.

To make forgery more difficult, most modern IDs contain numerous security features that require specialised and expensive equipment to duplicate.

Modern fake ID cards almost invariably carry a picture of the authorized user, a simple and effective form of biometric identification.

However, forgery of basic photographic ID cards has become simple in recent years with the availability of low-cost high-resolution printers, scanners and photo-editing software.

For example, many modern documents include holograms, which are difficult to replicate without expensive equipment not generally available.

Though accurate recreation of these holograms is extremely difficult, using a mixture of pigments and base can create a similar shiny multi-colored look that may pass cursory inspection.

A simple method of confirming that an ID is genuine is to print a serial number on it unique to the card and stored on a centralized database.

[8] Another simpler way of generating false credentials is to suborn one of the officials involved in the document-issuing process through bribery or intimidation.

To detect such fakes, it is necessary to perform a background check on the individual in question to confirm the legitimacy of the document's information.