PBSA

PBSA Journal PAGE 3 JULY/AUG 2025 Except where otherwise indicated, articles are copyright © by PBSA 2025. All rights reserved. 2024-25 Board of Directors Officers Tim Gordon Chair InfoMart Katie Hartley Chair-Elect Accurate Background Susie Thomson Secretary/Treasurer Security Watchdog Chad Ascar Immediate Past Chair DISA Directors Sachin Aggarwal A.M.S. Inform Private Ltd Chetan Desai SecureSearch Screening Services Pvt Ltd Melissa Foiles ILYM Consulting Andy Hellman iQubed Advisors, LLC Scott Maloney Omni Data Retrieval Kathleen Nottingham ScoutLogic Kellie O'Shea Creative Services, Inc. Bobby Shank Roundstone, Inc. Dissecting Indonesia's Longstanding Problem: Forged Education and Employment Credentials Continued from page 1 to eventually replace physical diplomas, representing a major shift in how academic credentials are issued and verified. Nevertheless, in 2025, more cases involving forged academic credentials in government agencies continue to come to light, and despite regulatory crackdowns and digital verification efforts, internal data reveals that credential fraud remains a pervasive practice across Indonesia's job market—a trend that cuts across all professional tiers and industry sectors. A Closer Look: Indonesian Perspective Recent analysis of Integrity Asia's employment screening databases, comprising nearly 51,000 background checks across Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia over 12 months from May 2024 to April 2025, reveals alarming patterns. The disparity in fraudulent document findings was disproportionately high; Indonesia's invalid document rate of 0.30% was significantly elevated compared to Thailand's 0.025% and Malaysia's 0.030%. Indonesia showed a fraud rate more than ten times higher than its regional counterparts, indicating that document forgery practices are substantially more widespread in Indonesia's job market. The findings identified three common types of academic document forgery: forged certificates, forged transcripts, and forged academic recommendations. The first two were the most frequently encountered. Higher Barrier, Higher Fraud Rates From the information we gathered, job applications within the insurance industry account for 28% of educational fraud, followed by business support services (including outsourcing, recruitment, creative and advertising agencies, to language localization) at 17.3%, and the banking industry, including FinTech, at 13.3%. While these sectors are known to place a premium on educational credentials due to their high-earning potential, emphasis on strong educational backgrounds often creates inverse incentives for applicants to fabricate qualifications, especially in Indonesia, where higher education is expensive and much of the labor market operates informally. Moreover, organizational pressure to fill positions quickly, driven by historically high turnover rates in the insurance and banking sectors, is also linked to more frequent hiring cycles and higher application volumes, increasing the statistical likelihood of encountering fraudulent applicants. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of remote roles in business support services, such as language tutoring, localization, virtual assistance, creative work, and other outsourced functions, often outpaces regulatory oversight and adequate verification infrastructure, creating opportunities for fraudulent candidates to exploit this gap. The remaining 41.4% of industry sectors targeted by applicants with invalid educational credentials are spread across seven industry verticals: technology (8%); consumer goods (8%); pharmacy (6.7%); logistics (5.3%); engineering (5.3%); manufacturing (4.5%) and hospitality (4.0%). Remarkably, 43 out of 75 applicants with fake academic credentials (57.33%) were mid- to senior-level professionals aged 30-40, while entry-level associates aged below 30 accounted for 17 invalid applications (22.67%). The remaining 20%, 15 applicants out of the total pool, were senior professionals over 40. Continued on page 4

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