Lesson 2 of 6
Identity fraud at onboarding: stolen, synthetic and impersonated identities
Identity fraud is a loan taken in a name that is not the applicant's own: a real person's stolen details, an identity assembled from real and fake information, or a real person impersonated at a live check. This lesson separates the three, follows how each one is built and why some leave no victim to complain, sets out the steps of identity proofing used by international standards, and shows with a worked example why checks are layered.
Published 29 October 2026 · Listen to this lesson
In this lesson
- Three ways an identity is misused
- Who notices: victims, reports and the missing complaint
- Identity proofing: the steps the standards describe
- How a synthetic identity is built
- Impersonation, deepfakes and layered checks
- Identity checks and the people who cannot pass them