Skip to main content

Underage hopefuls are taking to Facebook to find fake IDs

hunting fake ids facebook bar lineup
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Fake IDs are often proffered by big brothers and beer-swilling teammates, passed down by circumstance and word of mouth. But teenagers without easy connections to false identification aren’t letting their lack of lax siblings stand in the way of surreptitiously purchased booze. They’re using social media to snag ID cards and gain entrance to bars and access to beers. In Australia, police have discovered teenagers propositioning strangers of legal age to sell their identification. 

“Some teens have resorted to trawling through Facebook profiles, finding someone who looks the same and propositioning them for their IDs and paying them money,” Commander Adrian White told the Brisbane Times. The police noted that fake IDs incidents have nearly doubled in the last year in Victoria. It’s not clear how many of those IDs came from soliciting random people on Facebook — it’s hard to imagine anyone with a lick of common sense agreeing to sell their ID to a strange and obviously reckless teenager, let alone enough people acquiescing to cause a veritable fake ID surge. But it is a contributing factor to the rise of false identification in Australia. 

Facebook isn’t the only place underage people seek out fake IDs online; marketplaces like the Silk Road have a special section for forged documents, and a quick Reddit search can pull up users looking on the Silk Road forum for the best IDs out there. 

A glance at Twitter confirms that teenagers are also soliciting fake IDs through the micro-blogging site (and doing a really terrible job at being discreet): 

There’s also vendors offering fake IDs for sale on Twitter, although I suspect they’re not particularly reliable (and by that I mean they’re probably scammers):

While things like face recognition technology and Graph Search have made it easier than ever to find your potential doppelganger (or you know, close enough) and connect, there are still plenty of barriers between underage hopefuls and the bar. It’s called the bouncer, and unless you did some really good sleuthing and found your match, it’ll be just as hard as ever to slip one past these guys. 

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Kate Knibbs
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kate Knibbs is a writer from Chicago. She is very happy that her borderline-unhealthy Internet habits are rewarded with a…
Facebook takes down misinformation networks linked to QAnon
mark zuckerberg speaking in front of giant digital lock

Facebook removed hundreds of accounts and pages involved in manipulating public debate, many based out of Russia and Iran, in April, the company announced on Tuesday, May 5.

Domestic accounts in the U.S. linked to QAnon conspiracy theorists were also removed as part of Facebook's latest salvo against misinformation, according to the latest Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report.

Read more
Facebook to take on Twitch and YouTube with a stand-alone gaming app
facebook f8 canceled coronavirus 2019 zuckerberg

Update: The Facebook Gaming app is now live for Android users. You can download it from here. 

Facebook's gaming division is ramping up efforts to compete with Twitch and YouTube with a new, dedicated mobile app that will let enthusiasts easily discover and watch live gameplays -- leaving no stone unturned in its effort to capitalize on the spike in video game streaming.

Read more
Facebook hires Reuters to fact-check posts, but politicians can still lie in ads
facebook-under-a-magnifying-glass

Facebook is trying to fight fake news and misinformation on its platform by hiring Reuters to fact-check, but it’s still not verifying political ads.  

The new fact-checking unit at Reuters, which launched on Wednesday, will look at the content posted on Facebook and Instagram and identify when it is fake or misleading. A Reuter’s spokesperson told Digital Trends that the types of posts would include photos, videos, and headlines. Ads are noticeably missing from that list of fact-checked content. 

Read more