I asked this question about providing false information to a web site. The answer indicates that it is illegal to supply a false identification document even without an intent to commit a further crime, under multiple rules including fraud, forgery and identity crimes. This raises the question of when does lying about ones identity on the internet become a crime? It seems an important question, as I assume most if not all people here do not use their real names and presumably want to avoid unnecessary criminality.
One can imagine a chain of events that go from what most of us do here, and I assume is legal, to what is presented in that question which is illegal. At what point in this chain of events does it change from recommended security advice to a crime?
- Real person John Smith decides to create a fake persona purely to prevent doxing, as in their real identity being associated with their online persona. They have no intention to commit a crime, or gain something that they could not with their real identity.
- John creates Fred Blogs, as in invents a name, address, DOB etc. that closely matches John's real identity but different enough to prevent doxing
- John creates an image of a completely fictitious identity document, something like a Camouflage passport but existing purely digitally, perhaps created with a popular image manipulation tool.
- John creates an image of a their real identity document, and edits the name, number, address and DOB to match that of Fred Blogs, perhaps with a popular image manipulation tool.
- John participates in decentralised social media, presenting as Fred Blogs (note this is the recommended and most common way of interacting on usenet )
- John is approached for an identity document by an individual with respect to their political views, and supplies one of the images described above
- John is approached for an identity document by an individual with respect to a potential romantic engagement, and supplies one of the images described above
- John is approached for an identity document by an unrelated organisation, and supplies one of the images described above
- John is approached for an identity document by an organisation related to the social network, such as the developers, and supplies one of the images described above
- As above, but involving a centralised social media site rather than a decentralised one
- As above, but instead of being to avoid doxing the aim is investigative journalism (as may be required to write this article in a year or so)
I am particularly interested in the United Kingdom, but I kind of guess it is one of those things that "in a country with an extradition treaty with the US" may be most relevant.
