Malta reports 100,000 lost or stolen identity documents in 2014
Data shows one in four people in Malta missing passports, ID cards, residence permits or travel documents
The Maltese population is either exceedingly negligent with their different forms of officially-issued identification documents or there is another explanation why nearly one in four people in Malta had a passport, identity card, driving licence, residence permit or travel document either stolen, lost or misappropriated in 2014.
According to information published by the European Union on the Schengen Information System II (SIS II), over 100,000 such documents were reported by the Maltese authorities as having been lost, misappropriated or stolen in 2014 – the Schengen Zone’s third-highest rate on a per capita basis.
The SIS II is an information system that allows national border control, Customs and police authorities responsible for checks at the external Schengen border as well as within the Schengen Area to circulate alerts about wanted or missing people and objects such as stolen vehicles and documents.
The report does not itemise the numbers of different types of issued documents that are lost, stolen or otherwise missing, but Malta’s recent institutional turmoil in the area of visas and residency permits, coupled with the country’s high rate of alerts per capita, certainly raises concerns.
While the Libyan residency permits scam allegedly perpetrated by Joe Sammut and what appears to be an abnormally high number of Maltese visas issued to Algerians by Malta’s consulate in Algiers were conducted via official means, there is no guise of legitimacy when it comes to identity theft and forgery operations.
As such, the question begs as to whether this is yet another means of meeting the growing demand for EU travel documents, legal or otherwise.
There has, in actual fact, been a growing problem in the EU with fake passports, ID cards and travel documents – some of which have been used to gain illicit entry into Malta, although there have been no reports of Maltese passports being used in this respect.
Malta had suspended Schengen free travel rules in November in the lead-up to the Valletta Summit on Migration and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting over security concerns, but they were put back in place yesterday (see story on page 2).
Malta’s missing document rate the EU’s third highest
At 234 lost, stolen or misappropriated official documents per 1,000 people in 2014, Malta stands out quite prominently on an EU level. Malta is, in fact, in joint third place in the whole of the EU and is only bettered by Estonia (299 per thousand inhabitants) and Lithuania (280). Malta is on par with Holland and Belgium. Italy is next (210). Another four countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Denmark) are in the hundreds, five are over 50 and the rest are all under 50 per 1,000 people.
In Malta’s respect, the 2014 document figure is some 15 per cent higher than the alerts posted by Malta on the SIS II system in 2013, when the figure stood at 85,500.
Details of certain objects are also recorded in SIS II, for example, cars, firearms, boats and identity documents that may have been lost or stolen or used to carry out a crime.
Overall, stolen, misappropriated, lost official documents accounted for 77.8 per cent of all alerts filed by Schengen member states into the SIS II system. Other SIS II alerts made by Malta on the system include alerts on 2,162 people, 957 vehicles, and 838 vehicle registrations.
Only four official blank documents were reported missing in 2014 by Malta, contrasted against huge thefts of blank documents in Germany and Greece, which range into the tens of thousands, and Italy, with over 600,000 losses or thefts of blank official documents.
Identity theft is another major concern, in that an innocent person’s name may end up being misused by someone involved in a crime or illegal entry into the Schengen area.
As the European Commission explains: “Sometimes a false identity is used when carrying out crimes or attempting to enter or stay in the Schengen area. This misuse often involves
lost or stolen identity documents. If such a situation results in an alert being entered in the SIS II, it can cause difficulties for the innocent person whose identity has been stolen. However, detailed procedures have been put in place to protect the interests of these innocent people.”