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Unlicensed individuals working as engineers is increasingly being reported, with regulators in Canada documenting a rise in forged engineering stamps and digital seals as modern technology makes replication easier.

Such is the reason why regulatory agencies such as the Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) are taking it seriously.

Over the past two years PEO’s fraudulent investigations team has increased the number of prosecutions through the Ontario courts and is seeking more Superior Court injunctions against individuals to prevent repeat offences, said Jennifer Quaglietta, CEO and registrar of PEO.

While sometimes a legitimate engineer’s stamp is used or reused on a project without the engineer’s knowledge, another means of fraud is a forged or fraudulent stamp created with a fictitious licence number and name, she said.

Quaglietta was on a panel at the inaugural Engineering Roundtable during the Buildings Show recently in Toronto, discussing challenges and trends in the field. 

She said PEO offers all of its member digital seals, which allows anyone using their services to authenticate the documents issued by the licensee (engineer).

Also on the roundtable was Christian Bellini, a principal with Blackwell Structural Engineers. While the number of fraudulent cases in the province “remains relatively low,” Bellini pointed to a recent incident in which the name and licence of another engineer at Blackwell appeared on an engineer’s seal, but the company listed was not Blackwell.

“That is really easy to spot,” he said, but if jurisdictions are not closely checking even these cases can slip through without notice.   

Another form of fraud is when materials, tools or other products have a falsified testing or qualifying process.

“If we put a specialized connector…that we think is going to be good for the design and it turns out it is not, that can lead to catastrophic failure,” Bellini told the Buildings Show audience at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Engineers have to be especially diligent with all products to ensure compliance and performance standards are met, he said.

To address fraud, official engineering regulators in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Yukon launched a fraud awareness campaign this summer called Verify Before you Hire, said Jeanette Southwood, executive vice-president of corporate affairs and strategic partnerships with Engineers Canada.

She told the audience the online initiative shares true accounts (without using names) of fraudulent use of engineers’ credentials.

While it serves to raise the profile of the problem among professionals in the field, the campaign also aims to increase public awareness of the importance of verifying licensure.

Southwood said each engineer and regulator has a public directory of all the engineers in its province or territory, so background checks are possible.

“No one should ever rely only on digital documents, emails or freelance platforms for information about licensure.”

The roundtable discussion highlighted AI, which Bellini described as having “an enormous amount of promise to be transformational” in the engineering world.

But, he said, its introduction is measured because, at the end of the day, engineers are responsible for their projects. 

Blackwell uses AI for simple processes, such as generating site review reports and searches on technical issues.

Bellini said it is difficult to imagine dismissing AI if it could design an entire building.

“But it is also difficult to imagine how we’d do that and still have a level of comfort that the buck stops at the person putting their stamp on the drawing,” he said.

He suggested the engineering world is “quite a ways” from that level of automation.

“When it comes it will have a very rigorous structure for checks and balances by the engineer who is ultimately taking responsibility for the work.”

Bellini told the seminar there is room and an obligation for regulators to provide practice guidelines that can put all engineers on a level playing field with AI.

“We can’t all be inventing it at the same time.”

Quaglietta said two months ago the PEO adopted an AI practice advisory for professional practices which has been harmonized with guidelines created by Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., that province’s regulatory body.

She said engineers have to hold themselves accountable not only for using AI but for understanding the algorithms or analytics for how it is applied in their setting.

Southwood told the seminar Engineers Canada has developed guidance documents for engineers and teams working on projects where AI is used.