How to cheat at everything and influence people

In Finland, the art of imposture has gotten a lot of attention after a young man with no qualifications was caught working as a doctor. The young man was hired by two employers, neither of which had checked his background. He had convinced his employers by showing forged diplomas. After the incident, several other cases were revealed where unqualified persons had been hired to work in the Finnish health care sector.

The mentioned man´s reason for pretending to be a doctor was money, and the reward was high enough for him to justify the means.
The imposter’s monthly salary was over 4,000 Euros. This was enough for the young man to risk the health and life of his patients. According to the Finnish media, authorities have now checked the patient records of hundreds of people related to this case.

Meanwhile, a Swedish man was convicted in the Dutch court after being caught in the cockpit of a passenger plane. He had flown passenger planes with several airlines for 13 years with no qualifications. He had learned to fly by using a passenger plane simulator while working as an airline mechanic. Again, the key to his success was forging diplomas that nobody cared to check.

Authorities work hard to prevent cases like this. There are databases, where it is possible to run background checks for qualifications. However, the main problem has to do with a mixture of haste, lack of effort and the compromised usability of these services. In this case the impostor was caught because of his mistakes. Despite getting caught, he applied and was accepted to work in another hospital in Finland. He was hired, even though the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health had already caught him. If only the employers had checked his background, he would have been caught already at the applicant stage.

Preventing cases like this should be handled in two ways. On one hand, the relevant data about a person´s work roles and positions should be aggregated to safe and convenient places, such as online portals. On the other hand, every single person hired to work in a responsible position should be identified in a more secure way than is possible with the current methods. Health care and aviation authorities are likely to be considering the options, but the new methods for accessing confidential information should actually be used throughout the society.

When considering the potential for improved and mobile identity services, identity thefts, scams and cons play a relatively small role. The real benefits of Mobile ID come from diminishing the daily grind, such as getting rid of excess amounts of individual identity cards e.g. for loyal customers.

If we take a look at an ordinary wallet, we are likely to find customer loyalty cards, which identify customers to merchants. Debit and credit cards identify customers to the payment systems of banks and credit card companies. We might also find some copy cards, library cards and a driving license. Imagine that one identity service could replace all this by sharing the relevant information with all parties. The wallet could thus be saved for truly important items, like cash and photos of your loved ones.