Who trusts digital certificates? Governments, universities and employers, in their own words

People rarely adopt verification because it is a good idea. They adopt it after a shock. This article collects the cases that moved governments, universities and employers, what they said about it, and the doubts that remain. Every figure and quote below comes from a source listed at the end.

The shocks that changed minds

Kerala, December 2025: about one lakh fake certificates in one raid

Kerala Police raided a centre in Pollachi and reported more than one lakh counterfeit certificates carrying the seals of universities across India, plus nearly 100 fake university seals and vice-chancellor stamps. Reports put the price of a certificate at ₹50,000 to ₹1.5 lakh. Outlets differ on the exact count (nearly 100,000 or over 100,000) and on the number of arrests, so treat the totals as approximate.

Himachal Pradesh, February 2022: most degrees from one university not genuine

The state's education minister said that 36,024 of 41,470 degrees issued by Manav Bharti University appeared not to be genuine. The fallout reached beyond India. In July 2021, Singapore's Ministry of Manpower reported that 23 work pass holders were investigated over Manav Bharti qualifications and 19 were barred.

Florida, 2023: more than 7,000 fake nursing diplomas

The US Department of Justice described Operation Nightingale as a scheme selling fraudulent nursing diplomas and transcripts from three closed Florida schools. Filings cite more than 7,000 documents. People used them to sit nursing licence exams.

Hiring desks: lies are now the norm, not the exception

In a HireRight survey of about 4,000 respondents reported by SHRM in 2017, 85% said they had found a lie or misrepresentation on a candidate's resume or application, up from 66% five years earlier. In HireRight's 2025 benchmark, 47% of EMEA, 41% of Asia-Pacific and 36% of North American employers found education discrepancies in the previous 12 months. A 2025 HEDD and YouGov survey found 45% of UK HR decision makers had met false qualification information.

Governments that back digital records

India: the National Academic Depository

The National Academic Depository (NAD) was launched in 2017 under the Ministry of Education, with the University Grants Commission as the implementing body. Since December 2019 DigiLocker, run under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has operated it as the single depository for certificates, diplomas, degrees and mark sheets. Its stated aims include easy retrieval, verified authenticity and fewer fake paper certificates.

In January 2022 the UGC wrote to institutions: "All academic institutions are requested to accept degrees, mark sheets and other documents in the DigiLocker account." It added: "Academic institutions can register themselves and upload documents in the DigiLocker NAD portal."

Singapore: verification before a work pass

Singapore's Ministry of Manpower made education verification mandatory for new Employment Pass applications from September 2023. Before that, it reported barring an average of 660 people a year for fake education qualifications over roughly 2016 to 2020.

Universities: MIT and others

In October 2017, MIT ran a pilot with Learning Machine that gave graduates a digital diploma on their phones next to the paper one. The first cohort had 111 graduates. MIT had issued paper diplomas since 1868, to more than 207,000 students. The digital version used the open-source Blockcerts toolkit. Only a hash of the diploma went onto Bitcoin's blockchain, and employers could check a diploma through an online portal.

"From the beginning, one of our primary motivations has been to empower students to be the curators of their own credentials."
Mary Callahan, MIT registrar and senior associate dean, MIT News, 2017

"People can own and use their official records, which is a fundamental shift."
Chris Jagers, co-founder and CEO of Learning Machine, MIT News, 2017

Fraud was part of the reason too. Callahan told Inside Higher Ed that MIT "definitely gets its fair share" of fraudsters, and Jagers said: "This provides a format that people can't fake." The University of Melbourne was piloting the same app at the time, and Johns Hopkins planned a private ledger.

Employers, in their own words

Employers are the people who feel the cost of a fake first. In SHRM's 2017 report on resume fraud:

"Resume fraud is rampant."
Jay Meschke, president, CBIZ Talent and Compensation Solutions

"Education fraud tends to be the highest percentage of discrepancies we see."
Daniel Yanisse, CEO, Checkr

"Educational achievement tells an employer a great deal about an applicant's ability, qualifications and motivation."
Les Rosen, CEO, Employment Screening Resources

That last quote explains why employers care at all. A degree is evidence, and evidence only helps if it can be trusted. The same SHRM piece reported that about half of employers verify education credentials, so the other half still rely on the paper.

The doubts and the fine print

Supporters have reservations too, and they are worth hearing.

• Who holds the authority? Thomas Black, then registrar at Johns Hopkins, said: "Universities are very protective of their authority to certify learning." Any system has to leave that authority with the issuer.
• Lock-in. Jagers warned: "If everyone is doing this in a proprietary way, then the records won't be universally verifiable." A record only helps if a stranger can check it without an account.
• Coverage. A check works only when someone runs it. Half of employers still do not verify education.
• Acceptance varies. A UGC letter is guidance for institutions in India. Employers and foreign universities set their own rules.

Numbers to treat with care

Fraud statistics get repeated until they sound like facts. Several popular ones do not hold up, according to the compilation by Accredify.

• "70% of workers lie on CVs" comes from a survey page that can no longer be found.
• "1 in 5 lied about a degree" mixes people who lied with people who only knew someone who did.
• "700 fake Nigerian nurses working in the NHS" is false. The data concerned 48 of 515 candidates suspected of fraudulent test results.
• Gartner's forecast that 1 in 4 candidate profiles will be fake by 2028 is a forecast with no published derivation.

We use only figures with a named source and date, and we say when sources disagree.

What this means for an issuer

Different bodies took different routes: a national depository in India, a blockchain pilot at MIT, mandatory checks in Singapore. The idea underneath is the same. The paper or PDF in someone's hand is a copy, and the proof is a record held by the issuer that anyone can check.

Saandru takes that idea without a wallet or a blockchain. Every certificate gets a unique ID and a record signed with HMAC-SHA256. The QR code opens a public page showing the issuer, recipient, date and status, with no account or app. Edited copies show up as a mismatch, errors can be revoked, and pages stay live after you cancel. See how it works in our guide to tamper-proof QR certificates and the benefits of digital certificates.

Sources

• MIT News: MIT debuts secure digital diploma using Bitcoin blockchain technology (17 October 2017)
• Inside Higher Ed: MIT introduces digital diplomas (October 2017)
• SHRM: Verify degrees to protect your company from resume fraud (14 June 2017)
• Careers360: Kerala police bust fake certificate racket (10 December 2025)
• Arab Times: India-wide fake degree scam cracked (10 December 2025)
• Careers360: UGC asks institutions to accept degrees and mark sheets on DigiLocker (7 January 2022)
• Wikipedia: National Academic Depository
• Accredify: Degree fraud statistics 2026, a compilation citing the US Department of Justice, Himachal Pradesh's education minister, Singapore's Ministry of Manpower, HireRight (2025), HEDD and YouGov (2025) and Gartner (2025)

Figures taken from Accredify's compilation are second-hand. Check the original source before quoting them in your own materials.

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