The almost unlimited access to high-quality printing services, as well as to sophisticated graphics software, has increased the quality of document forgery in recent years to the point where it is becoming more difficult for border control officers to tell the difference between real and fake secure documents.

Document fraud is one of the tools used by international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking and other forms of transnational crime. A tri-national meeting was recently held in Argentina within the framework of the EUROFRONT Programme on training and technical assistance.

The use of fake ID’s has for some time been linked with a whole range of serious crimes including terrorism and people smuggling as well as, at the other end of the criminality spectrum, less serious misdemeanours such as under-age drinking.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its proposed cybersecurity rules including an attempt to prevent the serious problem of SIM swapping – a common form of digital identity theft that is particularly difficult to protect against.

A recent news item on BBC News has reported on the arrest of ten people, in London and Kent, on suspicion of supplying fraudulent passports to more than 100 high-level organised criminals.

Ahead of the 6 November governorship election in Anambra State, Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that each voter has to enrol their identity in its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).