Identity document forgery
fake IDs and their production
Identity document forgery is the process by which identity documents issued by governing bodies are illegally copied and/or modified by persons not authorized to create such documents or engage in such modifications, for the purpose of deceiving those who would view the documents about the identity or status of the bearer. The term also encompasses the activity of acquiring identity documents from legitimate bodies by falsifying the required supporting documentation in order to create the desired identity.
Identity documents differ from other credentials in that they are intended to be usable by only the person holding the card. Unlike other credentials, they may be used to restrict the activities of the holder as well as to expand them.
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). At the beginning of 2010, there were 11 million stolen or lost passports listed in the global database of Interpol.
Such falsified documents can be used for identity theft, age deception, illegal immigration, organized crime, and espionage.
Use scenarios, forgery techniques and security countermeasures
A distinction needs to be made between the different uses of an identity document. In some cases, the fake ID may only have to pass a cursory inspection, such as flashing a plastic ID card for a security guard. At the other extreme, a document may have to resist scrutiny by a trained document examiner, who may be equipped with technical tools for verifying biometrics and reading hidden security features within the card.
“Identity document forgery” enters the record as fake IDs and their production. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Identity, document and forgery can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Identity document forgery” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Identity, document and forgery provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2656872. The Library of Congress control number is sh85064145. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Identity document forgery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.