Document authentication is a public administration service confirming the existence of an original document. The authentication officer is legally obliged to recognize the original document through an authentication element (Act No. 21/2006 Coll. and Article 73 of Act No. 358/1992 Coll., Notarial Code) and to recognize an obvious forgery (Supreme Court of the Czech Republic 30 Cdo 1966/2013).

To assess the error rate of the verification, we conducted two experiments: one in 2017 and a follow-up (control) experiment in 2024. The results revealed a serious systemic failure. In 2017, a manifestly implausible document bearing only a printed signature (a forgery) was certified in 77 % of cases (51 of 66 offices). The 2024 control experiment showed that the situation improved only slightly over many years: the forgery was certified in 60 % of cases (39 of 65 offices). In practice, a certified copy may then be used as evidence that an original document exists—even where such an original never existed. This is why such a high error rate among public offices is dangerous.

We published the results of the 2017 experiment in the professional journal Státní zastupitelství, and the findings were also widely covered in the media. The conclusions were subsequently incorporated into training materials for officials performing vidimace and legalizace (signature authentication) within the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, as demonstrated by our 2024 control experiment, there has been no substantial improvement in the error rate. We are currently preparing the results for publication in the professional press.