A record issued abroad does not arrive with the authority its holder assumes. It has to be authenticated in a way the receiving system recognizes, translated by somebody who can certify the translation, and reconciled with a name, a date and a registry practice that may all work differently at home. This subject sets out the apostille and the legalization route it replaces, what a certified translation must contain, and the secondary evidence available when a country will not or cannot produce the original record.
A questioned foreign document is tested by comparison against known specimens, by verification with the issuing authority, and by examination of the physical object. A finding of forgery or of a knowingly false statement carries consequences well beyond the individual document, which is why the distinction between fabrication and an inaccurate genuine record has to be drawn carefully.
