Don Harrison
Province
B.C.’s new birth certificate will not only be larger, bulkier and “Superman- proof,” it’s also supposed to make life a lot harder for identity crooks.
Available as of Jan. 2, the large-format certificate will have 20 new features to foil bad guys seeking to profit by posing as somebody else.
The certificate will not supercede existing documents for British Columbians, Health Minister George Abbott and Solicitor-General John Les said yesterday. But the pair did recommend that people consider getting the new certificate as a way to help prevent identity theft.
The price of the 14-centimetre by 18-cm document will be $27, the current price for a birth certificate.
Abbott, whose ministry oversees B.C.’s Department of Vital Statistics, said current B.C. birth certificates “deploy 1950s-era security features. This new birth certificate will be one of the most high-tech, durable documents in the world.”
Made of strong plastic — “I’ve been trying all morning to rip it apart [without success],” Abbott joked — the security features will include irregular marks which, when held up to the light, form a maple leaf and two transparent windows, one with a window-shifting property and another with three floating maple leaves.
Les added that stolen wallets containing the old, small-format birth certificates are a significant contributor to identity theft.
He couldn’t give any figures on how many birth certificates are actually lost or stolen in B.C. each year.
© The Vancouver Province 2007