In 1995 he became engaged to an Irishwoman in Cork, where he had lived and worked since May 1995 as a typesetter and editor with the Cork Women's Poetry Circle. He had claimed to have been a journalist and author and to have done voluntary work in Africa. The report does not indicate whether Mr. Reeve had obtained an Irish or Dutch passport, driving licence or other identity papers, though it is certainly possible and seems probable from the circumstances. This account provides a graphic illustration of the problem of identity as it might confront a certifying authority. However high the standards were set, governments could almost always circumvent them for purposes of espionage or even in the ordinary course of operating such schemes as witness protection programmes.
Every individual has a number of unique characteristics, such as DNA profile and fingerprints.
If these were routinely identified at birth and recorded in a machine-searchable database, it might be possible to provide a reliable permanent connection between an individual and an identifier which could be used for authentication. Such a scheme is unlikely to be feasible in practice, particularly on a worldwide basis, and would in any event depend on government involvement which would render it objectionable to many and untrustworthy in some circumstances. It should also be borne in mind that in a number of countries, of which the UK is one, an individual is free to adopt any name he chooses, and to do so without any formality prescribed by law. This is not a concept which can easily be accommodated by rigid notions of authenticating the identity of an individual. The importance and value of authentication may be less than they sometimes appear.