Identity theft and adoption in the UK

Torill · Jun 19, 2012

This concerns, as the title indicates, the UK, or more specifically, England and Wales. So, if you have information about conditions in the US or other places, that won't help me much.

Identy theft is a plot point in my story. I'm wondering how plausible it would be for a woman to use another woman's name when she registers a birth, and then immediately put up the child for adoption, signing off any future rights to or information about the child.

I know this would be technically possible to do, given certain circumstances I'm not going to detail here (A corrupt registrar is part of it - it's a rather elaborate plot

). My question is this: how plausible is it that this would go undetected?

Of course, only the child itself can, after the age of 18, get access to the record where the name of the birth mother and the child's new identy is coupled. My concern is the woman whose identity was stolen. Wouldn't she discover that a birth was registered to her name? How could this be covered up?

Since the child is immediately put up for adoption, and the identity thief signs in the woman's name that she does not want to be given any information about the adoption process, no one would of course contact her concerning the child. But what about her medical records? If she contacted a doctor or was commited to a hospital - in our digital day and age, would the doctors automatically see from her journal that she was supposed to have given birth to a child? Or would there be some sort of 'fire wall' between the national register of births and her medical record? Or, given the fact of the adoption, could the mother ask that the birth was deleted from her name, or put on some sort of code, so it wouldn't automatically show up without her permission?

Would be very grateful for any informed inputs on this!

Shakesbear · Jun 19, 2012

Just curious - is the legal stuff necessary to the plot? If it isn't then the baby could just be abandoned - dumped somewhere like a public toilet. If the legal stuff is necessary then does the baby have to be born in a hospital? There are some laws concerning birth in England - I think it says a medical person has to be present - but these things can be side stepped. A friend of mine gave birth to three of her four children at home simply because her labour was really quick!

There may be some useful information for you here http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governm...s/Registeringorchangingabirthrecord/DG_175608

and here http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/naming/registerbirth/

Buffysquirrel · Jun 19, 2012

The 1953 Act requires the Registrar to take action where a birth is not registered within the forty-two day period. That suggests they must have some way of knowing about children who've been born but not registered. Possibly this information is provided to them by the NHS, but that's a guess.

If the woman gives false information to the Registrar, then that means that at some point she will be chased up for not registering the birth of her child, as there will be no record of registration in her name.

If she goes into hospital under a false name, they will check her records. They always do this so they can contact your GP for aftercare and so on (and check you're entitled to free-at-the-point-of-delivery (no pun intended) treatment). They will certainly notice if the GP has never seen the woman for ante-natal care. And they'll want to know why.

Looks like giving false information might be a summary offence. So no biggie, really. But for the Registrar it would probably mean dismissal. They'd need a good reason to risk their job. And a Registrar has standing in the community.

I think Shakesbear is right. If she avoids bringing her pregnancy to the attention of the NHS, then abandons the child, that's her best bet for never being connected to it. Once you enter the system, they have you!

Torill · Jun 19, 2012

Thank you for answering, and thanks for those links Shakesbear! I've been hanging around govt sites concerning this matter for a while now, but my problem is that I, as a lay person in these matters, get a bit lost in all the legal lingo sometimes... plus have not found the answer to my question below, but that may be because I'm too thick here.

Yes, the legal stuff is necessary for the plot I'm afraid. Won't work at all if the baby is just abandoned somewhere.

But yes, I thought the situation would be that the woman registered a home birth, with no health personell present. (As far as I've been able to tell, hospitals do inform the Registrar about births) And that all communication with authorites concerning this birth and the baby would be done under the stolen name, up until the point of adoption, so both the NHS and the Registrar would have the same, stolen name on the birth mother. The story presented will be that of a rather messed up life situation, so no ante-natal care or regular GP contact will have happened. I assume that the baby would be given a NHS number, because it would be subjected to medical assessments during the adoption process.

The problem is, if the woman wanted this birth and adoption to be kept a secret, and not automatically show on her medical records later, would the system accomodate to that wish? Or would the birth always show up on her medical records later, no matter what? Because then the woman whose identity was stolen would of course notice the momemt she needed health care for some reason...

Perhaps I need to look into the laws regulating medical journals, not adoptions. (Sigh) Does anyone have a link to a place where this is discussed in terms possible to understand for a lay person like me? Attacking the law texts themselves is a challenge, and takes ages...

(And yes, the corrupt Registrar has good enough reason to do what he does - he's not doing it only out of the goodness of his heart or something...)

Shakesbear · Jun 19, 2012

This would have been so much easier in the days before everything was stored in data bases!

The system would be bound by the law - if the birth is registered then anyone would be able to find the information. I think that one possible way round it is for the women whose identity is stolen to die - if that is possible within your plot. Or for the birth mother to steal the id of someone who is already dead.

RobJ · Jun 20, 2012

Torill said:
My concern is the woman whose identity was stolen. Wouldn't she discover that a birth was registered to her name? How could this be covered up?

My father left his wife and children to be with my mother, though he and his wife didn't divorce. My parents lived in army married quarters and as far as I can tell she pretended to be his wife (or they couldn't have had married quarters). His wife continued to live in a different part of the country with their children.

On my birth certificate and my brother's, it's not our mother's name that appears, it's my father's wife's name. I have no reason to believe that my father's wife ever knew this.

Of course, this goes back to 1959/1960 and things were different then.

Priene · Jun 20, 2012

I don't think it would be that difficult. Registrars do have databases these days, but they don't link up a parent's identity with their own birth registration carried out decades before. If she wants to adopt a real identity, a trip to the nearest graveyard would find names and dates of births of girls who died in childhood who would have been the right age to be the mother. They would have had death certificates, but there's no cross-checking at the time of registration that the identity of the mother isn't that of someone who died years before.

NHS records are a different matter, but if the mother came from another NHS area, her records wouldn't be available until the relevant health authority (which the Tories have just abolished) sent off to whichever county she claimed to have come from. My NHS records were all lost, for instance, during one of my many moves, so pre-1995ish I have no records at all. In the meantime, NHS staff would be far more interested in treating her than worrying about her registration.

Shakesbear · Jun 20, 2012

What will I need to take to the registration office?

You don’t need to bring anything. However, it would be helpful if you brought the form issued by the hospital or midwife called ‘Registering the Birth’ which has baby’s NHS number on it. For accuracy, it would be helpful if you could provide a document such as a passport or driving licence which shows the correct spelling of your name(s) as spelling errors can be complicated to put right later. You are not required to bring your baby along to your appointment.

You will be asked for the following information:

The date and place of birth

If the birth is one of twins, triplets etc. then the times of the births will be needed.

Baby’s full name and gender

Full names of child’s parents, including previous names

Date and place of birth of child’s parents

Occupation of child’s parents

Mother’s address at time of birth

Date of marriage of child’s parents (if this applies)

The number of children born to the mother

http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/Community...ion_services/Registration_of_births/NCC088139

The registrar being corrupt would mean that some of the above information could be falsified. Also the need to show the registering the birth form would not be required.

Thought you might find this information about giving birth at home useful.

It is perfectly legal to give birth alone, unassisted - ie with no midwife in attendance - whether this was accidental, or deliberate...
...It is illegal for anyone other than a UK registered midwife or doctor to 'attend' a woman in labour except in an emergency. This means that if it can be proved that the birth partner intended to act as a midwife, he (or she, but 'he' is used here for simplicity) may be prosecuted. The birth partner may even be liable to prosecution if he was present at the baby's birth, even if he was in another room at the time. Some have suggested that 'present' means in the same room, but it could be interpreted as 'nearby'.

http://www.homebirth.org.uk/law.htm

Priene · Jun 20, 2012

Shakesbear said:
[The registrar being corrupt would mean that some of the above information could be falsified. Also the need to show the registering the birth form would not be required.

I worked at a registrars for a short while and I don't remember any effort being made to find out whether the information supplied by those registering was true. We spent most of our time finding out if old people were dead so we could take their names off the electoral roll.

Peter Graham · Jun 20, 2012

Identy theft is a plot point in my story. I'm wondering how plausible it would be for a woman to use another woman's name when she registers a birth, and then immediately put up the child for adoption, signing off any future rights to or information about the child.

As others have suggested, the standard scam is for the mother to take the name of someone who was born at roughly the same time as her but who died shortly thereafter. Technically, it can be discovered, but in practice different government offices hold different bits of information and very often they don't seem to cross check. If the mother pulled the scam early enough, she may well have all sorts of documentation in the false name - driving licence, passport, utility bills and perhaps even a national insurance number. If she rolls up to the Registry Office late one sunny Friday afternoon* waving some or all this stuff together with the other documentation required by the Registrar, she's got fair chance of getting away with it. Although once someone starts asking questions, the whole scam can unfold quite quickly.

Regards,

Peter

*We had one in Britain in 1986 and I'm reliably informed that we can expect another in 2013.

Buffysquirrel · Jun 20, 2012

I think the biggest risk is going to be that the woman whose identity has been stolen has been visiting her GP, who has notably failed to enter into her notes that she's pregnant, or to arrange ante-natal care.

I believe attempts are being made now to link up the register of deaths with other databases in order to prevent people taking the names of the dead as false identities. But if she did it long enough ago, she might be okay.

Allana · Jun 21, 2012

Torill said:
But what about her medical records? If she contacted a doctor or was commited to a hospital - in our digital day and age, would the doctors automatically see from her journal that she was supposed to have given birth to a child? Or would there be some sort of 'fire wall' between the national register of births and her medical record? Or, given the fact of the adoption, could the mother ask that the birth was deleted from her name, or put on some sort of code, so it wouldn't automatically show up without her permission?

So, I take it that the identity thief is going to give birth under her own name, but register the child under another woman's name.

In that case, it is not so much the firewall between the national register of births and her medical record that would be my concern. More that her medical records would show that she has given birth.

Apart from, perhaps, the identity thief's concern that a future partner does not find out about her having given birth, why should this worry her? And even in this case, she has the right to request that her medical records remain private to her alone.

As to registering the child under another woman's name, I would go for the 'money talks' angle and have the identity thief finding an unscrupulous 'someone' to set her up with the fake ID.

That way, you wouldn't necessarily need the crooked registrar, but you would have a stressful situation for the ID thief to go through in finding the necessary help.
(But maybe that's just me having watched too many TV crime shows

).

Buffysquirrel · Jun 22, 2012

Of course, once they put our medical records on a national computer, they'll be available to anyone.

Shakesbear · Jun 22, 2012

Buffysquirrel said:
Of course, once they put our medical records on a national computer, they'll be available to anyone.

I think, but am not sure, that there is an opt out clause. Which won't make much difference as they are too hard for us to access!
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsart...-patient-website-to-access-electronic-records

Torill · Jun 24, 2012

Thank you so much, everyone who has posted here and tried to help. This place is amazing, so many helpful, knowledgeable people! Nice to hear from someone who worked at a registrar's office, too!

Still working on my plot and had many good ideas from you all. (Not sure stealing from the dead will work with my plot, though - and no, she's not giving birth under her own name...) Fake doctor's papers concerning the birth seem to be necessary here, among other things. I'll work it out - thanks again guys!!!

Identity theft and adoption in the UK

Torill

Not as trollish as you might think

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

Buffysquirrel

Torill

Not as trollish as you might think

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

RobJ

Priene

Out to lunch

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

Priene

Out to lunch

Peter Graham

Arise Rheged!

Buffysquirrel

Allana

Buffysquirrel

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

Torill

Not as trollish as you might think