This, however, sheds some light into a dark realm of gross neglect and blatant disregard for the existing loopholes in the system that has been for umpteen times abused and exploited with possible involvement of corruption which has yield its toll on the problem which could be managed in a more proactive and systematic manner.

For one, genuine personal data of refugees are being leaked to syndicates by irresponsible parties and this enabled multiple cloning of bona-fide identities which could be traced back to the database.

It is a major concern in the security community that the forged refugee identity cards could pose a serious threat to both domestic and national security as the modus operandi in the black market seems to show a severe lack of integrity and control in the entire system.

We need to consider the numerous risks involved, from different angles of criminal activities, subversion to terrorism which is equally detrimental to the personal safety of the actual data owner themselves due to the mass exploitation of their personal details for use by syndicates in reproduction of these forged refugee cards.

The Malaysian authorities, on the other hand, should consider a more proactive approach in managing this issue.

Being a non-signatory member of the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, it is the prerogative of the government to stand firm on urging the UNHCR to enhance the card’s security features and possibly conduct a crackdown to weed out illegal immigrants and pressure the world body to review and revise its card issuance programme.

The UNHCR should review its entire database against the total number of cards issued, which should be jointly collaborated with Home Ministry in order to enable an integrated database for reference and conduct of due diligence checks and records available for lookup by the authorities.

After all, we’ve been hearing about all the aggressive policing measures to safeguard our country’s state of security, which include measures on documenting illegal immigrants and foreign workers. Why should fake refugees and asylum seekers be exempted from this process and treated with full immunity at the end of the day?

* Khen Han Ming is principal consultant at JK Associates.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.