We are accustomed to presenting a passport at the request of officials, showing it to bank employees, entering data during registration in the Internet banking service, etc. Also, no one will be suspicious if you are required to provide a photocopy of your passport, for example, when applying for a job or getting a loan. In all these situations, we behave carelessly because we don’t even think about what scammers can do if they know our passport details. What threatens you and how you can protect yourself, you will learn from this article.
What passport data do scammers use?
Open the first page of your passport and you will receive an answer to the question of what information scammers can use. First of all, criminals are interested in, as well as full name. Information such as date of birth and are also valuable, and the most sophisticated criminals are even able to use information about the number of children, whether the citizen is legally married, and where he served in the military.
Study in more detail what information is indicated in the passport, as well as detailed information.
At first glance, such actions of criminals may seem incomprehensible, because the document remains with you, which means it cannot be used anywhere. But, unfortunately, one of the advantages of technological progress is that the personal presence of a person is not at all necessary in a number of situations: the main thing is that the correct information about him is indicated. As an example, we can cite various online services, where for registration you need to indicate your passport number, series, full name. and date of birth.
Now you know one of the ways that you can do it by knowing the series and number of another person’s passport. But even before the state began to create special portals, various criminal schemes were already operating. As a rule, for them, the fraudster had to have an accomplice who is a bank employee, a notary or a government employee. And then the scheme looks very simple: without your knowledge, the criminal carries out certain registration actions, for example, takes out a loan secured by real estate.
You will learn more about why scammers need passport data further in this article. But before that, let's understand how this personal data gets to criminals.
The main ways to obtain passport data are that criminals do not particularly need to personally look at your passport to find out personal information. If you go online, there are many platforms where you can sell passport data. There they offer 70-200 rubles for a set of information, and they will pay even more for providing photographs or photocopies.
Naturally, all these sites are illegal and as they are identified, law enforcement agencies decide to block them. But it is almost impossible to establish the owner of such a site, especially if it is located abroad; and it won’t be too difficult for a criminal to launch a new portal on a different domain address.
Information leakage to scammers most often occurs in the following way.
Websites and forums
If you register on a forum, online store website or other site and are asked for your passport information, immediately stop working with this site. Most likely, this project will not bring you any practical benefit, but was created for the purpose of collecting and subsequently selling passport data.
The only exceptions in this matter are government portals that provide services to the population and business, as well as payment services. In both cases, you must be warned that you are transferring personal data, and also obtain your consent to their processing.
Data on personnel in organizations
When applying for a job in a public or private company, you will not escape the need to show your passport and submit a photocopy of it to the HR department, which will be attached to your personal file. This is a completely legal procedure, without which you will not be able to start work and receive official wages for it. But there is always a risk that fraudsters, through deception, bribery or blackmail, will force HR employees to hand over information about employees to them.
Bank employees
Everyone has seen an advertisement in which to get a loan you need to come to the bank with one passport. Financial institutions that operate under a license from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation have the right to issue loans to the public and businesses, and to protect their funds, they collect personal data about clients. All this is legal and correct, if not for the risk of dishonesty of bank employees.
We also note that the right to collect information about clients is vested in mobile operators, government services (, , and others), local authorities and more. All employees who have access to such information are subject to certain controls and are warned of possible administrative and criminal liability. But the risk of data leakage still remains.
Forgery of a real passport
State and large financial institutions pay closer attention to the personal data of citizens. But there are institutions with reduced interest in citizens’ passports. These include mobile phone shops. A minor change in appearance, and a person can come with such a passport to apply for a new SIM card.
He can also, upon request, receive a printout of phone calls and SMS made recently. From it it will be clear to the fraudster which banks you use and how often.
Important personal data in the wrong hands can at any time create a lot of problems for the real owner of the passport.
Therefore, you need to be as careful as possible with them: do not present them to dubious companies and persons, do not leave them on the Internet.
What can scammers do if they get hold of your passport data?
In order for a criminal to be able to produce a fake document, he will need a passport without data, that is, the form itself, and information about a real person, which could be you. Such a counterfeit will pass various checks, because in most cases the series, number and full name are checked using special databases, and they will completely match. So if you start receiving incomprehensible fines, payment notices, registered letters from government services, it is quite possible that this is not a mistake, but someone is using a fake passport with your data.
The above method of fraud is relatively rare; most often, criminals act according to the following schemes.
Registration of credits and loans
As an example, we have already given above the situation of how fraudsters can use a person’s passport data if they have an accomplice in the bank. Typically, such an employee does not work for a long time in one financial organization. He applies for the desired position, enters into several fictitious deals and quits.
Depending on how much information the scammers have, they can apply for either a regular consumer loan or a mortgage loan using your property as collateral.
The criminals get the money, and you get the obligation to repay the debt. Theoretically, such a loan can be contested in court, but it will take time and the expensive help of a lawyer.
Business registration
Such passport scams have become especially popular after business registration mechanisms have been simplified. Now, to open your own company, you don’t even have to come to an appointment with officials. All registration actions are carried out through special services or with the help of notaries. Therefore, if you have someone else’s personal data, you can easily falsify documents for registering an individual entrepreneur or LLC.
Such companies are usually used for money laundering, and when law enforcement agencies begin to unravel the entire chain, they will first come to the person in whose name the business is registered.
Cheating in online games
Here is another option when you can use your passport data without a passport. Such fraud can both cause you financial harm and only affect your reputation. In the first case, using information about you, a criminal may try to gain access to your game account.
Most of these games rely on donations (money that players pay to receive various bonuses), and these funds are allowed to be transferred between players, as well as withdrawn from the system. Therefore, if you have a lot of paid game currency in your account, they may try to steal it. The second option is also very unpleasant: having gained access to the account, they turn it into a means for sending advertising spam.
Internet fraud
Many electronic payment systems require you to provide your passport details to register in the system; and in order to remove the minimum restrictions on the volume of funds passed through, it is enough to send a photo of your passport. But what can you do with a photo of your passport data?
If hacked by criminals, such an account becomes an excellent platform for laundering funds and financing illegal organizations. So you risk ending up on the list of suspects in cases of arms or drug trafficking, and perhaps financing of terrorism. And in such a situation there is little pleasure, even for an innocent person.
You can give another example of what can be done on the Internet with someone else’s passport. After sending a copy of the documents to the payment system, you get the opportunity to receive loans directly online. And then the fraudster takes a loan, spends it on purchasing goods, or simply transfers the money to another electronic wallet.
Also online lending services are now popular, where you register using your passport and borrow from the project administration or other users. This service is in demand, because you can quickly get money, but the protection of such transactions is several times lower. Therefore, the borrower may well be a criminal with a photo of someone else’s passport.
And this is not all that scammers can do with a copy of your passport. Therefore, it is important to know about protection methods.
Registration of electronic wallets
Passport data can be used in registering all kinds of web wallets. This type of fraud may seem harmless to some, but this is only at first glance.
After all, today these sites can lend money at interest. Responsibility for loans and other transactions inside the wallet falls on the shoulders of the real owner, whose data was stolen. While scammers will benefit and remain in the shadows.
There are also services where detailed information (passport number, etc.) is not required. Many of them require a phone number for registration. But if the owners have passport data, they will be able to receive a SIM card that was registered in that name.
How to protect yourself from scammers
The personal data of every citizen of the Russian Federation is protected by a special federal law, and this is your best protection. You have every right to refuse to provide your passport data, and especially a copy of the document, if the party requiring it does not have the appropriate permission. According to the procedure, you must agree to the collection and processing of such information, and if nothing is explained to you and you are not asked to sign a written consent, then the data is being transferred illegally.
When it comes to the question of whether it is possible to give a copy of your passport to strangers, you are the master of your own destiny. No one prohibits such a transfer, but if your data is stolen by scammers, then the responsibility falls entirely on you. But if you gave a photocopy to an official employee and signed the permission, then the organization he represents is responsible for their safety.
Fraudsters found out your passport details - what to do
If scammers find out your passport details, then your protection is to contact law enforcement agencies or Roskomnadzor. The easiest way is to submit an application to the prosecutor's office, where they are required to initiate a case and identify those responsible for disclosing information. During the investigation, the prosecutor himself will contact Roskomnadzor so that they can take measures to remove information about you from open sources, if it gets there.
This publication does not address the issue of theft of the document itself.
If you have become a victim of thieves, read.
Own assessment of the counterparty using the Internet
A counterparty is one of the parties to a contract in legal documents. For example, you contacted a certain company that provides security services. To draw up a contract for services, a person may be required to provide passport data.
But before doing this, it is recommended to conduct your own small independent investigation. Use search engines and other means to check whether the company can be trusted. Perhaps its existence is only a formality.
If you were able to find only a couple of pages of the company’s social networks on the Internet, but the site no longer opens at the address, you should think about whether you need to start cooperation. Carefully check the information about the company that requires your passport information.
Pay attention to the site address if a copy of documents is required via the Internet. Look only for official company addresses and be suspicious of any requests for personal information.
What to do if attackers got your SNILS number? Step-by-step instruction
- Calm down. If attackers have received your SNILS number, they will not be able to cause immediate damage. Even if an agreement is drawn up on your behalf to transfer savings to another NPF, fund employees will most likely call you to make sure that you really wrote such a statement.
- Just in case, change your login and password on the government services website.
- Then immediately contact your pension fund and write a written statement of your intention not to transfer the funded portion of your pension to any fund for a year.
- Submit a similar application to the Pension Fund by contacting them in person, by mail, through an online application or through the MFC. It is easier to cancel the transfer to an unscrupulous NPF while the funds have not yet been transferred.
If, as a result of unlawful actions, your funds were nevertheless transferred to a non-state fund, after five years you can transfer them to the state administration or to another fund while maintaining the accumulated interest. There is a procedure for early transfer of funds - the next year after writing the application. Investment income for this period, alas, will be lost.
Important . If you believe that the transfer was made unlawfully and want to return your savings to the previous fund in an accelerated manner along with interest, then you will have to defend this right in court.
What to write on a copy of your passport to protect yourself
Gradually, all government agencies are switching to interacting with citizens online. And willy-nilly, users have to leave passport data on sites such as State Services. Users may be required to provide digital copies of their passport. But before sending, you can sign them - for what purpose the documents were uploaded.
That is, the name of the government agency, the purpose of downloading the copy. For example, “Copy for .
The owner of the document must ensure that the copies do not contain images. This can be a big problem for scammers on their way to obtaining loans and other benefits from your personal data. Do not store them on a computer that could potentially become a target for spyware.
