UNDERAGE, UNDER ARREST
As the fake ID industry grows around Georgia State, police warn of severe consequences for students if caught.
UNDERAGE, UNDER ARREST
As the fake ID industry grows around Georgia State, police warn of severe consequences for students if caught.
With the fake ID industry booming across the Georgia State campus, a lot of freshers to the world of false documents may not know getting caught can come with severe consequences.
The Signal spoke with GSUPD Chief Joseph Spillane on fake IDs, who said they’re not currently a major concern of the department.
“The problem with fakes is not really on campus itself, but more in the bars and liquor stores surrounding campus that cater to the over 21 crowd,” Spillane said.
However, he said that if students get caught with a fake identification document, they can be charged with a misdemeanor.
“If a student gets caught with a fake, they can be charged with being a minor in possession,” Spillane said.
A Minor in Possession (MIP) charge in Georgia is usually a misdemeanor, and the consequences vary. Possession charges can result in jail time, an automatic 6-month license suspension, fines, community service or probation.
This punishment is not as strict as it is in some states, such as Florida or Illinois, where the use of a fake is a felony with a fine of up to $100,000 and sometimes up to 10 years in prison.
To combat usage of fake IDs, many states in recent years have added extra decoration, such as pictures and designs, to their licenses to make them harder to fake.
One such example is California, which uses a tactile date of birth and signature, illustrations of well-known California landmarks in the background, and an ultraviolet photo and date of birth. Additionally, for minors, the card’s orientation is vertical, whereas for people of age horizontal format is used.
But store owners around Atlanta say they don’t need fancy decorations to identify a fake ID.
The Signal spoke to a liquor store owner who wished to remain anonymous. Their store lies half a mile from campus, and they said students often attempt to become a part of their customer base.
“If a student gets caught with a fake, they can be charged with being a minor in possession.”
— Joseph Spillane
“We’ve been doing this a long time, so we know a fake when we see it,” the owner said. “If the picture quality is bad, that’s a dead giveaway.”
The owner also provided some tricks they use to discern a fake, including asking the person for their address or zip code that is on the ID.
“If we see an ID that we know is fake, we decline the sale and take the ID and don’t give it back,” they said. “We then call the police and have them come take a look at it.”
For a long time, fake IDs were created using laminated sheets and Photoshop, but for a lower price, online vendors can now provide more realistic IDs that are scannable in bars.
Driver’s licenses all have a magnetic strip and a barcode on the back, and vendors of fake IDs can copy those onto a fake, according to PatronScan.com, a website that sells ID scanners to nightclubs and bars.
“Fake documents are easier than ever to make with new technologies,” Spillane said.
This is due to IDs now having the barcode and magnetic strip that will be able to pass through the scanner.
A Fun Night Out
But studying in the heart of Downtown, a lot of students don’t let their age compromise their ability to have some fun.
One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said she paid a friend $60 for her fake ID.
“Most of the time it works, but sometimes I get turned away,” she said.
But other students want no cost to having fun, and prefer taking advantage of their doppelgängers.
“I use an old ID of a friend who is already 21. We look somewhat similar, so it works,” said a student who also wished to stay anonymous. “I’ve never had any trouble with it because it’s a real, authentic Georgia ID of someone who is 21.”
To crack down on the use of fakes, more bars and other places with alcohol have started to utilize a newer kind of technology to spot a fake: the optical ID scanner.
Every government-issued ID has readable characters that are unique and the optical scanner will read the front of the ID and use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the ID. Because it is very difficult to fake a legitimate government ID, this is the most powerful method of scanning IDs. But despite students’ new available technologies to create more convincing fakes, the consequences are still serious.
A Fun Night Out
But studying in the heart of Downtown, a lot of students don’t let their age compromise their ability to have some fun.
One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said she paid a friend $60 for her fake ID.
“Most of the time it works, but sometimes I get turned away,” she said.
But other students want no cost to having fun, and prefer taking advantage of their doppelgängers.
“I use an old ID of a friend who is already 21. We look somewhat similar, so it works,” said a student who also wished to stay anonymous. “I’ve never had any trouble with it because it’s a real, authentic Georgia ID of someone who is 21.”
To crack down on the use of fakes, more bars and other places with alcohol have started to utilize a newer kind of technology to spot a fake: the optical ID scanner.
Every government-issued ID has readable characters that are unique and the optical scanner will read the front of the ID and use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the ID. Because it is very difficult to fake a legitimate government ID, this is the most powerful method of scanning IDs. But despite students’ new available technologies to create more convincing fakes, the consequences are still serious.
While in Georgia the possession of a forged ID can be a misdemeanor depending on the prosecutor, the creation and distributing of such forgery can be a felony if the prosecutor wishes to charge them with one.
IDGod is an online distributor of fake IDs that was started in 2012, is based in China, and is currently the most common way of getting a fake among college students, according to Business Insider. The website allows users to choose the information they put on the ID, as well as picking which state the ID is from.
It also offers discounts when buying IDs in bulk. For example, for a Georgia ID, the price is $100, but falls down to 70$ for two, and $60 for each ID if an individual is purchasing six or more.
IDGod also sends two copies of the ID to each buyer, to ensure that should one get taken away, the patron has a backup. The website has been shut down a couple of times in the past year, but because it is based in China, where fraud is not as severe of a crime, it has proven to be challenging to keep the site closed for good.
