My point is that this new item (and others) make identity theft seem so extremely easy in the U.S. You just have to be determined. Doesn't take any particular skill to forge an electricity bill, doesn't take any skill to give someone else's social security number (which many apparent morons presume are secret), etc.
By moving the posts from "trivial" to "somewhat challenging", I think the U.S. would be better off.
As an example: If I wanted to assume a new identity in Sweden, to get rid of my criminal history, I'd have to make a very convincing fake I.D. card, and make sure to find a "victim" who is not going to sound the alarm when they notice. Basically, as soon as you register their name on your address, a confirmation letter will be sent to that person, which makes it so they can dispute it.
You could probably get away with it if you can find someone who moved abroad and forgot to notify the authorities. Even then, you'd have a really hard time getting a new passport or ID card in their name. It might work if you look a lot like them, and can drag their spouse, parent or sibling to the police station and have them vouch for you (with a valid ID card). I admit it's not impossible! But it certainly is not a thing that you ever hear about on the news.
> Basically, as soon as you register their name on your address, a confirmation letter will be sent to that person, which makes it so they can dispute it.
That doesn't seem relevant to the homeless man in question.
You’re right, that’s one vulnerability in the system.
I don’t know how common it is for someone to want to impersonate a homeless person, though, considering in Sweden you’d probably have to pay up that homeless person’s debt…
Ok, I’m slightly kidding here, but really this kind of long con is not a common mode of identity fraud in Scandinavia, probably because it’s harder to get away with.
The more common identify fraud here would be to assume the identity of someone with a stable economy and then try to take out payday loans in their name. Which a homeless person would be declined for, of course.
It gets rather involved and usually involves phishing the victim into signing something malicious using a digital ID. Not to mention no bank would agree to pay it out in cash. So it requires not only determination but skill as well.
So you just spent three paragraphs hand-waving away the exact situation this article was about.
"I don't know how common it is... not really a common mode of identity fraud... the more common identity fraud here would be..."
It was a homeless victim in this article. It seems like the improvements you're suggesting are entirely off-topic if you admit they wouldn't have helped here.
They would absolutely have helped! If there were, for instance, a proper way to validate what someone looked like, for instance if the national ID database had been consulted for photos of the person when issuing a new ID, then probably they would have realized these two men look nothing alike.
> You could probably get away with it if you can find someone who moved abroad and forgot to notify the authorities. Even then, you'd have a really hard time getting a new passport or ID card in their name.
And if they'd moved to e.g. Finland[1], it wouldn't even have mattered if they'd forgot that -- the Finnish (tax etc) authorities would inform their Swedish counterparts when they register as a resident of their new country.
Source: Got a letter from Swedish Riksskatteverket (tax authority) after I registered at Helsinki Maistraatti (municipal registrar) telling me I'd been moved to "Emigrated" status, back in 1995 when I moved here.
[1]: Probably all the Nordic countries before then, all EU ones now.
My point is that this new item (and others) make identity theft seem so extremely easy in the U.S. You just have to be determined. Doesn't take any particular skill to forge an electricity bill, doesn't take any skill to give someone else's social security number (which many apparent morons presume are secret), etc.
By moving the posts from "trivial" to "somewhat challenging", I think the U.S. would be better off.
As an example: If I wanted to assume a new identity in Sweden, to get rid of my criminal history, I'd have to make a very convincing fake I.D. card, and make sure to find a "victim" who is not going to sound the alarm when they notice. Basically, as soon as you register their name on your address, a confirmation letter will be sent to that person, which makes it so they can dispute it.
You could probably get away with it if you can find someone who moved abroad and forgot to notify the authorities. Even then, you'd have a really hard time getting a new passport or ID card in their name. It might work if you look a lot like them, and can drag their spouse, parent or sibling to the police station and have them vouch for you (with a valid ID card). I admit it's not impossible! But it certainly is not a thing that you ever hear about on the news.