‘Tal-Waħx’: Notaries Raise Serious Concerns Over ID Card Racket Implications
A number of notaries have raised serious concerns over the far-reaching potential implications of an alleged identity card racket that has been exposed by Jason Azzopardi.
Robert Aquilina, a notary and Repubblika activist, pointed out that notaries and banks typically make use of people’s ID cards to verify their identities. Once their identities have been verified, they can sign contracts, powers of attorney and testaments, and engage in other notarial services.
“Notaries have access to Identità’s central database, which we use to double-check a person’s identity,” he said.
“However even this system has been corrupted and falsified, because the abuse didn’t take place by a criminal gang in an isolated garage but in the offices in the heart of Identità.”
“Can Robert Abela tell us how, in the midst of all of this falsification and fraud, a Maltese citizen can have their mind at rest that no one is impersonating them to steal their wealth or carry out illegal transactions in their name?”
“Can FIAU director Alfred Zammit tell us whether he is concerned that all the due diligence that is taking place in Malta to combat money laundering is based on a corrupted system? These are things that occur in a third-world country, not an EU member state.”
Clinton Bellizzi, the former president of the Notarial Council, added that the scary thing about it all is that the documents aren’t forged but authentic ones that were issued by an authority.
“This means that no digital tool, no matter how sophisticated it is, can raise the alarm that they are forged documents,” he said. “We played with the very system on which is based a substantial part of legal certainty that should be guaranteed.”
Notary Ian Spiteri said that the only solution is for the government to retract every single ID card, to issue new ones with a new look as soon as possible, and to set a cut-off date after which the current ones can no longer be used.
Jason Azzopardi
Fellow notary Michel Dingli flagged a statement by Identità in response to an article by Times of Malta, which quoted people who found out their ID cards had been duplicated, including in the public healthcare system.
Identità said it has no control or responsibility for the data validation techniques employed by Mater Dei or any other third-party system, and that it is essential for third-party IT systems to implement strong and robust data validation methods to ensure their data is up-to-date and compliant with GDPR regulations.
“They are admitting that the documents they issue aren’t reliable because third parties need to implement a robust system to verify whether they have been forged. It’s scary,” Dingli said.
“If someone approaches me with a Maltese residence card issued by Identità which states that his ID card is 123456Z, can Identità explain what kind of robust system I must imply to verify the information in this document?”
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