Real People With Fake Resumes And Fake People With Real Resumes

I’m fascinated by stories about what is “real” and what is “fake” and because of my obsession with digital identity, I’m especially fascinated by stories about fake credentials (such as academic qualifications). What’s more, being English, I have a particular obsession with stories about fake dentist credentials. For example, the story of Omid Amidi-Mazaheri, an asylum seeker who told British immigration officers that he had a dental practice in Iran and repeatedly left patients in agony after he drilled without a local anaesthetic and did expensive fillings that crumbled within days. But how were his patients supposed to know whether he was a real dentist with a false identity or a real identity with false credentials?

What Are You Faking?

You would imagine that some training is necessary to be a dentist. Hence the need to check the credentials of dentists (although while writing this it occurs to me that I have never checked the credentials of mine) but there are other jobs — perhaps many other jobs — where the credentials are window dressing. I am reminded here of the case of a builder who faked a resume and went on to rise to a very senior level in the British National Health Service (NHS), leading one to inevitably question why that particular employer asked for the qualifications in the first place, since they were evidently irrelevant.