Why ProtectMyId exists

A professional vehicle vandalized outside an apartment building in the Paris suburbs. Two minutes of absence. A briefcase stolen containing laptops, documents, an ID card and a passport. The owner filed a police report that same day. He immediately renewed his papers. On the police receipt, he read that his documents were registered in police databases (FOVeS), transmitted to Interpol and the Schengen system. He felt protected.

Armed with the stolen ID card, an individual physically walked into a bank branch in Le Havre. With forged pay stubs, fake bank statements with mismatched fonts, a fabricated IBAN, a falsified notarial deed containing a spelling mistake on the country of birth, he opened an account, obtained a Visa Premier card, a revolving credit of 3,100 euros, then a consumer loan of 20,000 euros. All within one month. Without the promised salary domiciliation ever being honored.

And that was just the beginning. More accounts were opened at three different banks. A vehicle was financed through a credit company for nearly 57,000 euros. Two phone lines were opened (Orange in Le Havre and SFR in Dijon), along with an Orange Bank credit. In total, over 90,000 euros of documented fraud (estimated total ~130,000 euros including organizations that closed the fraudulent accounts without responding to GDPR access requests). All with a single stolen ID card.

The bank behind the account stated it had committed no error. It referred to defamation proceedings. The bank where he had been a customer for 25 years refused to restore his rights. Three successive complaints were dismissed for “insufficient evidence”, even though the file contained proof: account numbers, a fictitious address, the landlord’s details, the fake employer, the notary who confirmed the deed was forged.

He assembled the file himself: a visit to the premises, mail collected from a letterbox in his name, formal demands, seizure notices. Review of the documents showed signatures that had not been compared, falsified documents accepted, and basic checks not carried out.

An IT systems engineer, he found that the problem is not technical. A centralized, secure system would let an organization check whether an identity document has been reported, without exposing the holder’s personal data. No need to know everything: only whether a document is flagged. The technology exists. A registry the private sector can consult did not.

His stolen documents remain valid until 23 September 2034. Without a report organizations can consult, lifting the banking restriction would leave the same document usable. That is where ProtectMyId was born.