DIPB conducts progressive work on fraud checks
June 3, 2014 – The Department of Immigration and Border Protection conducts checks to ensure that all approved visas are backed by genuine documents and information. Since December 2009, this protocol has transformed into a new Department arm called the Risk, Fraud and Integrity Division (RFID).
Aiming to support the Department in spotting visa fraud and false information in every Australian visa application, RFID uses a risk-based approach in its operations. In partnership with local and international agencies, the division manages the department’s fraud identification activities as part of its fraud-control obligations.
RFID has five approaches that align with the function of these five units comprising the division: the Forensic Document Examiners unit, the Program Integrity unit, the National Student Integrity unit, the Visa Cancellations unit, and the Information Collection unit.
DIBP said in its annual report that these units processed thousands of visas in 2012-2013, filtering out 217 counterfeit and fraudulently altered documents; conducting 1,951 monitoring events of employers; recording 4,777 decisions on student visa cancellations due to conditions breach; canceling 18,869 subclass 457 visas; and servicing 9,827 telephone calls on allegations.
But RFID’s blanket direction for controlling fraud is the Public Interest Criterion (PIC) 4020, rebadged in March 22, 2014 as the “integrity” PIC. This criterion attached to skilled, temporary, business, student, and family visas allows DIBP to refuse or cancel a visa “if an applicant provides bogus document or information that is false of misleading in relation to their application.”
With visa fraud checks strongly enforced, visa applicants are at risk of not only facing visa refusal or visa cancellation, but also of being sanctioned with a 3 or 10-year ban from applying for a visa bearing the “integrity” criterion. Another disincentive if caught to have provided fraudulent information or documents is the application of the same ban for secondary applicants.
According to DIBP, these fraud checks are being implemented “to support the integrity of Australia’s border, immigration, detention and citizenship programs.”
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