PERSONAL identity is a tightly policed business. Birth certificates are unambiguous. Using forged documents is a crime. Even where sporting an alias is legal it counts as dodgy. Yet corporate citizens are different. They can hide their true identity in a maze of interlocking companies, or even use places such as the British Virgin Islands, where anonymity is legally protected. Those seeking the owners' real names and addresses there find that the trail goes cold with a nominee—a lawyer or accountant—who shields clients from nosy outsiders.

This can benefit the devious, the tax-shy, the corrupt and the outright criminal. Campaigners and, increasingly, criminal-justice agencies want the rules tightened—and not only in faraway islands. The case for this is highlighted in “The Money Laundry”, a new book by Jason Sharman, an Australian academic. As a test, he tried creating companies in various places without using a real (verified) ID. Of the 47 providers of registration services he approached in OECD countries, no fewer than 35 agreed to form shell companies without requiring proper documents. Some also helped to open bank accounts. Classic tax havens were on the whole much more rigorous.

The American administration highlights reform of company registration as “critical” to its new crime-fighting strategy, published in July. It is backing a long-running attempt by Carl Levin, a Democratic senator, to make disclosure of beneficial ownership a condition for any company registering in the United States. An al-Qaeda fund-raiser (using a company called Truman Used Auto Parts), Iran (which owned a Manhattan skyscraper) and Viktor Bout, an arms trader now facing trial, are among those that America's lax regime has benefited.

Tightening the rules is under consideration at a forthcoming working group of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force. Its recommendations already require countries to prevent abuse of corporate structures—but it does not check up much how they do so. The main onus is on banks to identify their customers (a company without a bank account is not much use). But a report this summer by Britain's Financial Services Authority lambasted banks for their failure to investigate their customers' real identity: many took the company registration at face value. Five are now under investigation. Campaigners such as the Global Witness group also want tougher rules on providers of registration services.

Plenty of pressure comes the other way too. British lawyers want the “know-your-customer” rules relaxed. American states such as Nevada, Wyoming and Oregon have flourishing industries providing registration services. Selling respectability is a great business, until you run out.