Stop document fraud with digitally signed QR Codes

  • Rajesh Soundararajan
  • Feb 19, 2019
  • 5 min read
Stop document fraud with digitally signed QR Codes

Document Fraud has become a bane in business and it is only increasing in complexity and magnitude by the day - Secure Documents with Document Security QR Code

document security qr code Stop Document Fraud - Check out how simple QR code can boost document security

What Is Document Fraud?

Document fraud is the manufacturing, counterfeiting, alteration, and/or use of any documents like passports, cheques, university transcripts, permits, licenses, IDs, bills etc., to change the information and use it for personal gains. Such unauthorised modification can help to circumvent laws and present a false picture. It is usually considered a criminal activity.

How Pervasive is Document Fraud?

Document fraud exists in almost all areas/verticals that one can think of. The most common types of these violations are in industries like banking - in accounts statements, cheque book, trade documents, healthcare - in medical bills, insurance claims, Insurance - in policy documents, Government IDs- e.g Passport, driving licence, Other IDs, human resources - pay slips, appointment letters, General - bills, invoices, warehouse receipts.

Such fraud has been ongoing since time immemorial. It may appear to be a victimless crime at times (after all marginally changing the grade point average on a transcript can’t possibly harm anyone is the thought!. However, in the worst of cases, there can be significant monetary loss and even a loss of life (in case some spurious machines are shown to be functional on paper for example, but fail in operation, jeopardizing the lives of people). Effectively, these acts rob others of resources, money, information, or other items that are considered valuable to someone/ some institution. With the advent of the digital age and accompanying technology which is accessible to all, such crime has amplified and has become a major concern.

“Fraud moves like water trying to find cracks in the system” James Chessen executive vice president of ABA’s Center for Payments and Cybersecurity, USA. “We have long anticipated that fraudsters would change their tactics once chip card technology was implemented in the U.S. The survey shows attacks have shifted more to other payment platforms like checks and online transactions."

Some Common Examples of Fraudulent documentation

There are multiple examples of fraudulent documentation involving altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. We come across such cases and examples on a regular basis.

  • An individual illegally obtains personal information/ documents of another person and takes a loan in the name of that person.

  • He/she provides false information about his/her financial status, such as salary and other assets, and takes a loan for an amount that exceeds their eligible limits with the motive of non-repayment.

  • Sometimes a person takes a loan using a completely fictitious name and creates necessary paperwork for the same which may be difficult to verify or cross-check to confirm

  • Fake documentation (such as fake warehouse receipts) is used to avail or grant excess overdraft facility and withdraw money for other purposes.

  • A person may forge export documents such as airway bills, bills of lading, Export Credit Guarantee Cover and customs numbers/orders issued by the customs authority.

  • People also modify educational documents to become eligible for opportunities they would not get otherwise

Banking industry alone suffered an ‘attempted fraud against bank deposit accounts’ to the tune of $19.1 billion in 2016 . In the face of increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes, banks are investing in new technologies and enhancing overall customer protections to thwart them.“Fraud prevention never stops,” Chessen, said. “Banks are constantly monitoring for patterns and trends and quickly evolving their techniques to stay a step ahead of fraudsters.”

How do you prevent Document fraud?

For all documents which need validation, you need a secure document generation and verification solution. The ideal solution will not rely on a database or going back to the source, work for both print & electronic documents and should be user-friendly and instantaneous. There are many ways to solve it but if in the end users find it difficult to use- they will simply not use it routinely and the fraud will continue.

One easy way is to use the Secure QR Code solution which is easy to deploy and can be used for all kinds of documents - whether electronic or printed - which may need to be verified. The Secure QR code is generated at the time of final production of the document so that the critical information is captured inside and it can be made tamper proof with high levels of security. The validation is made easy by the use of a smartphone App and is therefore extremely user-friendly and doesn’t rely on accessing databases. Apart from security and privacy, there are other benefits too.

Such a solution is suitable for educational , corporate or government environments. Usually, it is a lightweight system which can be easily integrated with existing document production processes of users. What makes such QR code solutions scalable and ubiquitous are that simple mobile Apps make it extremely easy for any person to instantly validate both physical and electronic documents. For bulk verification, there can be a server-side solution which can automate the task.

With strong back-end systems, yet, lightweight and flexible front ends, QR code led document security systems can validate documents both offline and online. It offers an extremely high level of security in an efficient manner. Such solutions also work perfectly across industries and are suitable for any size of the organisation - ranging from small and medium organisations to large enterprises as well as governments.

Check out on How this Technology Works

Examples of Document Fraud in Banking

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