A questioned document is any document whose authenticity, origin, authorship or content is disputed or in doubt. It can be a passport presented at a border, a banknote taken at a till, a contract with a contested signature or a handwritten note in a criminal case. What makes it “questioned” is not its type but the fact that someone needs an answer about it.
That answer is what forensic document examination exists to provide. The discipline uses magnification, controlled light and comparison against known material to establish what a document is, how it was made and whether it has been changed since.
What makes a document “questioned”
A document becomes questioned the moment its value depends on something that cannot be taken at face value. Typical triggers are:
- a document is presented as proof of identity, entitlement or payment, and its holder or contents are in doubt;
- two parties disagree about whether a signature, date or amount is original;
- a page appears to have been added, removed or replaced;
- an entry seems to have been erased, overwritten or chemically removed;
- the document is evidence in an investigation and its origin needs to be traced.
The term is deliberately neutral. A questioned document is not presumed false. The examination may well confirm that it is genuine, and in practice that is a frequent outcome.
The main categories of questioned documents
Questioned documents fall into a handful of broad groups, each with its own typical questions.
Identity and travel documents. Passports, identity cards, residence permits, visas and driving licences. The question is usually whether the document is genuine, whether it has been altered, and whether it belongs to the person presenting it. These documents carry deliberate security features, so the examination compares what is present against what the issuing authority put there. Reference collections such as PRADO, the public register of identity and travel documents maintained by the Council of the European Union, describe those features per document.
Banknotes and value documents. Currency, cheques, stamps and certificates. The question is mostly authenticity: is this note produced by the issuing central bank, or is it a reproduction? Cheques add the question of alteration, since payee and amount are frequent targets.
Contracts and commercial documents. Agreements, invoices, wills, letters and certificates. Here the questions shift towards authorship, page substitution, the sequence of entries and the dating of ink or paper.
Handwritten documents. Notes, signatures and annotations. Handwriting comparison is a specialist field of its own, carried out against known samples from the purported writer.
Source documents. Birth certificates and civil records that are used to obtain other documents. They often have far weaker security features than a passport, which is exactly why they matter.
What an examiner tries to establish
Whatever the document, the work comes down to three questions.
Authenticity. Was this document produced by the issuer it claims to come from, using the materials and processes that issuer uses? For a passport, that means substrate, print process, personalisation method and security features. For a banknote, paper, printing and the features described by the central bank.
Alteration. Has anything changed since the document was issued or signed? Additions, erasures, overwriting, chemical removal of ink, substituted photographs and replaced pages all fall here. Alterations often leave physical traces: disturbed paper fibres, differences in ink response under infrared, fluorescence where there should be none.
Origin. Where did the document, or parts of it, come from? This covers questions such as which printing process produced a counterfeit, whether two documents came from the same source, and whether indentations on a page reveal writing from a sheet that lay on top of it.
Handwriting comparison and ink dating are part of the wider field, but they are specialist laboratory work. Most of the questions above can be approached first with optical, non-destructive methods.
Non-destructive methods come first
The order of work matters because some tests change the document. The accepted sequence starts with methods that leave no trace.
Visual examination under white light. Overall condition, layout, alignment, print quality and anything that looks out of place. This is where an experienced examiner forms the first hypotheses.
Magnification. A 10x to 15x loupe resolves microprint, the dot structure of printing processes and the edges of laser engraving. A digital microscope adds higher magnification and image capture. See manual magnifiers vs digital microscopes for how the two compare.
Oblique light. Light from a low angle across the surface shows relief: intaglio print, embossing, erasures that roughened the paper, and indented writing.
Transmitted light. Light from behind reveals watermarks, security threads, laser perforations and thinning of the paper where something was scraped away.
Ultraviolet. UV excites fluorescent features and shows paper that reacts when it should not. Chemical alterations often show here, as described in detection of chemical alterations in documents.
Infrared. IR distinguishes inks that look identical in visible light, which makes it one of the most useful tools for spotting added or changed entries. See infrared examination.
Only once these steps are complete, and recorded, does it make sense to consider methods that may affect the document, such as chemical tests or sampling. Recording each step properly is a skill in itself, covered in recording a finding.
When a case goes to a forensic laboratory
Front-line staff and most examiners in banks and border services work with handheld and desktop equipment. A case moves to a forensic laboratory when the question goes beyond what optical methods can answer, or when the result has to stand up as evidence. Typical reasons are:
- the outcome will be used in court and needs a formal report from an accredited examiner;
- the question concerns authorship of handwriting or a signature;
- the document needs instrumental examination such as electrostatic detection of indentations or ink analysis;
- comparison is needed against a reference collection the front line does not hold.
Handing over well is part of the job. Keep the document flat, do not write on or near it, and record what you checked and what you saw. A clear note of the observations at the first line saves the laboratory time and protects the evidence. For the workspace, see setting up a questioned document examination position. The full method is described in our guide to forensic document examination. For spectral work, see what a video spectral comparator adds. Our article on when to escalate covers that decision in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Is a questioned document the same as a forged document?
No. A questioned document is one whose authenticity or content is in doubt. It may turn out to be genuine, altered, counterfeit or genuine but fraudulently obtained. The term describes the question, not the answer.
What equipment does a first examination of a questioned document need?
Magnification of around 10x to 15x, a UV light source at 365nm, a white light that can be used at a low angle and from behind, and ideally an infrared viewer. Together these cover most of the non-destructive checks.
Who examines questioned documents?
First-line checks are done by border officers, police, bank staff and notaries. Formal examination is done by forensic document examiners, usually in a police or government laboratory or in independent practice.
Can a questioned document be damaged by examination?
Optical methods such as magnification, UV, IR and oblique or transmitted light do not alter the document. Chemical tests and sampling can, which is why they come last and are left to a laboratory.
What is questioned document examination called in practice?
The field is usually referred to as forensic document examination. “Questioned document examination” is the older and still common term for the same discipline.
Equipment for questioned document work
Dexeq supplies the optical equipment used in the first stages of questioned document examination, from handheld magnifiers with UV and oblique light to desktop systems that combine UV, IR and transmitted light with a screen and image capture. Browse the forensic examination systems, compare manual inspection magnifiers, or request a quote for a setup that fits your caseload.
Written by the Dexeq editorial team. Dexeq was founded in 2011 by a former officer of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee with 18 years of service, 11 of them as a document fraud expert.
Sources: PRADO, Public Register of Authentic travel and identity Documents Online (Council of the European Union); ICAO Doc 9303, Machine Readable Travel Documents.
