Synthetic identity theft, or rather synthetic identity creation, has become a major breakthrough for fraudsters. The days of having to find a ‘mark’ with a good credit standing who ticks all the boxes for stealing their identity in order to defraud financial and other institutions, are fast disappearing. Syndicates have evolved in their methods of theft and fraud, safe in the knowledge that they can neither be identified, nor caught, and never be prosecuted.

Synthetic identity theft, or rather synthetic identity creation, has become a major breakthrough for fraudsters. The days of having to find a ‘mark’ with a good credit standing who ticks all the boxes for stealing their identity in order to defraud financial and other institutions, are fast disappearing. Syndicates have evolved in their methods of theft and fraud, safe in the knowledge that they can neither be identified, nor caught, and never be prosecuted.

“Identity theft, criminal investigations of the dead or missing, mass disasters both by natural causes and by criminal intent – with this as our day to day reality, the establishment and verification of human identity has never been more important or more prominent in our society. Maintaining and protecting the integrity of our identity has reached levels of unprecedented importance and has led to international legislation to protect our human rights.” – (Forensic Human Identification: An Introduction, 1st Edition - Tim Thompson, Sue Black)

Legal practitioners are creatures of tradition and certainty. They prefer all rules to be codified and all legislation to be clear. They yearn for certainty and frown upon ambiguity within contracts, laws and especially legal proceedings. Thus there is a call for the codification of video conferencing, through video links, within the Uniform Rules of Court.[2]