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24 November 2005
Brits are incredibly dishonest, according to the surprising results of a new survey.
The annual Dishonest Britain study, commissioned by security systems firm TSSI, surveyed 1,000 people and discovered that 45 per cent have undertaken some kind of forgery - of items varying from sick notes to ID cards.
Twenty-one per cent of those surveyed admitted to having used a fake ID card, while 32 per cent had gained access to restricted work areas by passing themselves off as somebody else.
Incredibly, 32 per cent of people questioned had conned their way past a security guard, and 14 per cent admitted to having spied on other people keying in their passwords or PINs at work.
TSSI chairman Danny Chapchal, describing dishonesty and fraud in the UK as "shockingly widespread", said that such behaviour seems almost to be becoming the norm.
He said: "Identity fraud is now a major risk to consumers, yet our study shows that low-level identity abuse and fraud is commonplace to the extent that it is almost becoming socially acceptable."
Those doctor's notes luckily aren't quite as much of a problem as some of the other issues - but five per cent still admitted to forging them and this is likely to have cost businesses millions of pounds.
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