Certificates of identity are required, for example, by land owners, holders of rights, persons affected by rights, authorities or courts if land register entries, deeds or other documents refer to parcels that are no longer documented in the current inventory. This means that legal relationships can no longer be assigned to the current parcel situation.

A certificate of identity is used to prove which parcel or parcels that exist now are identical to a previously existing parcel or which parts of parcels that exist now correspond spatially to the lost parcel.