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!
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!