I'm currently in the process of trying to buy a house. In order to prevent money laundering my lawyer must verify original ID documents and take copies of these. The bank also needed similar. Those I can kind of understand, if you can't trust the lawyer or the bank who can you trust right?
But it doesn't end there. The estate agent dealing with the sale of the house also needed copies. That is 3 copies of our personal details (passport and bank statements) floating around on how many different computer systems? How safe are the access controls on those systems? How many people require access to those systems as part of their day to day work? More than I'd like.
Your lawyer knows you because he met you and can see the details you provided do match you because of the photo and signature. The bank the same.
So if someone else had your details it shouldn't matter. If they go to a lawyer or bank to try and get them to verify the documents, the lawyer or bank should be doing due diligence to verify the documents. The lawyer should verify the passport is real, not forged, and the photo and signature matches the person, and done face to face. Same with the bank.
So it really shouldn't matter how many copies of your personal details are out there.
The issue is that when a bank doesn't do it's due diligence and barely verifies the documents (or doesn't verify at all). They didn't check the person opening the account is the same one as the personal details provided. That is the bank's mistake not yours. But the banks have to gall to say it's identity theft. As if it was your fault they didn't do their due diligence.
It's the pressure from marketing/corporate to increase sales/accounts. Often the more accounts opened mean more bonuses. So the incentive is to not reject. They don't get bonuses for doing due diligence and rejecting fake applications. They put that work on you once someone has frauded them.
Really any bank that says you've been identity theft it's their fault they didn't have the right due diligence in place.
Copies of these verification documents are hugely valuable to someone trying to carry out "identity theft". They could for example forge an 'originals seen' stamp from a lawyer or bank teller. At that point they are as good as an original as far as banks are concerned.
Are you referencing Mitchell and Webb? Because you're practically quoting one of my favorite sketches:
