​An IRATA Technician attempted to use a fraudulent IRATA certificate to obtain work. Upon request to provide proof of his qualifications, the technician presented a copy of the fraudulent certificate to a member company.

On inspection, the technician’s IRATA ID card was not fully legible, therefore to verify the card details, the company visited the IRATA website and used the technician check tool. Online verification revealed that the technician’s certificate and ID card were not valid.

The respondent admitted the allegation of falsifying the certificate and was sanctioned accordingly.

The adjudicating panel determined as follows:
“We acknowledge the respondent’s explanation for his actions and circumstances. Despite this, as the respondent went to significant lengths to produce a fraudulent certificate in order to deceptively obtain work, the panel are left with no feasible alternative but to apply the appropriate sanction for this ill-considered act. Therefore, in accordance with Form 100 ‘Standard Penalties’, we apply sanction ‘E2 Forging or falsifying certificates, assessment forms and/or ID cards’ which carries a penalty, as a first offence, of three years’ removal of IRATA certification.”

IRATA Comment

We urge all IRATA members to be vigilant against fraudulent activity and utilize the technician checking tool which can be accessed here: https://irata.org/verify.

Technicians are also reminded that proven attempts to use fraudulent IRATA certification to deceive are likely to result in withdrawal of certification.