Glossary

Someone uses your name, ID or number to act in your place: open an account, sign a contract, get hired.

Using a fake, a stolen copy or a reported-lost document to obtain a service.

The French carte nationale d'identité (CNI).

Your information (ID copy, numbers) ends up online or with an attacker, often without a stolen wallet.

Visible text stamped on a copy, e.g. "Issued to Agency X, on 12/03/2026". That is the impression of the seal: anyone can see who it was issued to, and why. A watermark alone attests nothing. Sealing is what produces a certificate.

A statement at the police station, without filing a full complaint. Weaker than a complaint. Sometimes used to report a leak.

Police file of stolen documents. Banks, insurers and employers cannot query it.

Know Your Customer: a bank's duty to check who you are before opening an account. In practice this is often a visual check of the ID, not a query of a stolen-document file.

You can no longer have a chequebook, or some account openings are refused, often after payment incidents. It can happen to an identity-theft victim.

French register of bank accounts. It shows accounts opened in your name.

Banque de France file of cheque incidents.

Banque de France file of unpaid loans.

The 15-digit number on a French carte Vitale. It is the key to registering an employee.

The document that hires you. It can be signed with your identity without you knowing, especially in remote or temp hiring.

The body that collects employer social contributions. A fake contract in your name can show salaries there.

A digital fingerprint of the file or number. You cannot get the original document back from it. That is what PMI stores, not the ID itself.

Tool that seals a copy before sending it, like a wax stamp. Two things: a visible watermark (recipient, purpose, date) and an electronically signed certificate. The certificate, not the watermark, is the proof. Anyone can re-check it.

The act of binding a copy to one specific send (recipient, purpose, date) with an electronic signature. The digital equivalent of a wax seal: if the file is altered, the seal breaks. PMI Seal does this on every send.

Electronically signed attestation, produced at the moment of sealing. It carries the seal's facts and the file fingerprints. Present it with the sealed copy: if someone has altered the document, the signature no longer holds.

Automatic link between an organization's software (bank, recruiter) and PMI, to check a document in seconds.

PMI's answer to an organization: nothing flagged, or document reported stolen.

European data-protection rules. Right to access, correct and delete your information.

The French authority that enforces GDPR.

A police or online filing. ProtectMyId never replaces it. For theft or loss, it remains mandatory before a report is validated.