Many landowners are well sensitized about threats posed to their ownership rights by land invaders, squatters and those speculating to claim rights to their land through adverse possession. They are quite aware about risks posed by insincere purchasers who knowingly renege on agreements then thereafter haul them into protracted legal suits while they enjoy use of their land awaiting determination. And many are aware about neighbours who gradually encroach upon their land in order to file speculative disputes through which they may retain such portions. In all these cases, the landowner can thump, and to an extent, predict the next move by the offenders.

But few landowners are aware about identity theft, usually employed by very shrewd conniving characters out to benefit from land whose owners are busy going about their daily business or died. I know of a case where someone’s land was subdivided, and the resultant plots fully sold out to unsuspecting buyers, without their knowledge. There are cases of parcels of land, some even developed, where irregular transfers to other parties have happened without their owner’s knowledge. In other cases, families out to claim estates of deceased relatives belatedly discover that some properties that belonged to the deceased were long transferred. But how, one may ask.

It’s all very simple. Those preying on such properties take up the identities of the actual owners and subsequently transact whatever transaction they wish with the land control boards, advocates and land registries. They will be holding identity cards, title deeds and search certificates all correctly reading the name of the actual owner. All they need to do is ensure that though the name and number on the identity card they use correspond with that of the actual owner, the photo affixed is theirs. This disarms any buyer or institution since it gives the impression that the holder of the identity card is indeed the actual landowner and can freely transact business.

This partly informed today’s practice where land registries require purchasers to provide photo identities alongside other personal details. This helps. But there are millions of land owners who hold land but whose photo identities are not filed in land registries, making their properties game should anyone target them through identity theft. Luckily, this kind of theft has not become rampant around the country. But suave conveyancing lawyers and land professionals are aware of it. Some nowadays go the extra measure of checking out identities of unfamiliar land owners who present themselves to move transactions with the registrar of persons before dealing. Once checked this way, the original photo identity of the actual owner will be noted to differ with the masquerade. They beat it fast once so exposed.

Will the introduction of an electronic register and transactions wipe out the practice? I am afraid not. The perpetrators will only change from the analogue clique to the digital ones. Countries like Estonia, with one of the highest digital literacies and use in the world, and home to a fully electronic register and the exclusive use electronic land transactions, provide lessons. Every citizen in Estonia has a state issued electronic-identity with which to do business. But hackers still managed to crack and enter their system at one time. With time, Estonia adopted the use of blockchain technology, which encrypts digital data, in order to further protect its systems.

Therefore the bottom-line is that our intelligence and security system should beware the clique benefiting from identity theft and immobilize it as best they can. While we ran analogue processes, they can be easily identified around land registries, and the registrar’s alerted accordingly. Then those developing our electronic land management system must go out of their way to give us the highest protection protocols possible to keep away hackers. Then users must guardedly protect their usernames and passwords.