Internet Identity Keystone Kops

This is a rant about e-government. Twice this week I have resorted to completely unsecure paper processes to overcome the clumsy attempts by government agencies to identify the person trying to pay for a government service.

I think that governments, in a kneejerk reaction to fears of terrorism-related identity theft, but without actually understanding what they are trying to prevent, have just adopted some visible measures that try to look preventive, hoping that they can check off that box.

The first one I thought would be easy. I had designed and installed the most secure part of that web-based e-government application myself a few years back. This is to order a copy of a death certificate. Well there is now a new front end added recently to confirm your identity. It asks me to enter 3 numbers issued by different government agencies in order to identify myself. This is new. I don't have all three. I can't get in. I do have those numbers for the deceased. That works, but I can't bring myself to complete the process because I know that would be dishonest. It would be easy and consistent with the purpose of the identity check, but still lying. I used the paper process instead. It doesn't even ask me who I am, much less make "prove" it.

Just today, I was trying to file some corporate tax documents electronically. Again, it asks me who I am. The deceased used to do this and I have all his access codes, but lying to the tax man is not a good idea. All the other corporate filings and changes are up to date (annual report, directors registry, officers, and so forth) and I am fully legally certified as the person who can act on behalf of the corporation, but only the deceased individual seems to be able to file electronically. Do I use the access code with his name on it? Tempting. Many many phone calls and voice menus later (got to love that trick of pressing the zero) it turns out that the process for issuing me a web access code is convoluted and time-consuming (oh, and completely wrong - the documents they want prove nothing). No, they won't check the official registry of corporations, online and free, which publicly certifies the same information. And they won't take an e-mail of a scan of a documetn, only a photocopy by snail mail. Or by fax. Do they even make fax machines and analog phone lines any more?

Luckily I can file all these papers by hand - handwritten even. Again, the paper process has no identity check at all. It's troublesome, but compared to my paying one government agency to mail a paper copy of a document that I can mail to a second agency that will mail me a document that I can mail to a third agency, all so I can "prove" that I am allowed to file corporate documents electronically, it's not so bad.

Tags: internet e-government government identity theft

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