People with evil intentions would only need  a bit of knowledge to falsify the certificate in order to con people out of their money. Times of Suriname is shocked by the fact that the certificate that people who have been registered to become part of the Royalties For Everybody (RVI) does not have any additional security measures to make it impossible for people to change the information that is on the certificate. After the document has been received, the name, ID number and all other information could be changed before making as many fake duplicates as is wanted. Of course each certificate has a unique registration number and a QR code but people who know very little about these things could easily be swindled. The fact remains that senior citizens are being urged to apply for the RVI while they are the ones who need help with the digital registration. The registration process is in fact extremely complicated. In the past couple of days

Times of Suriname spoke to several people and in particular senior citizens about the whole process and many confirmed that they found it extremely complicated. Some of these people needed two days to finish the registration process. It is difficult to complete the registration without a desktop or laptop in combination with a telephone or a proper camera. This means that people need at least one or two of these appliances to get registered and that they often need assistance from others. A lot of effort went into making the registration process as secure and authentic as possible which is why Times of Suriname is puzzled by the fact that no adequate measures were taken to protect the certificate against forgers. The director at E-gov, Previen Ramadhin, initially expressed shock when Times of Suriname presented its findings to him and assured that he would  check it personally before assigning a team to add additional security measures to the certificate. He acknowledged that senior citizens could be tricked by forgers.

 “We realize that people who are 69 years or older often need help and that more information should be available to the public so that people know what to look for.”