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@AlisonW There were two authenticating steps then, though. (I did that too.) Firstly, you attended the PO *in person*. And secondly, your passport photo was signed on the back by someone with a public reputation—GP, lawyer, bank manager, someone. So arguably an informal distributed "web of trust" approach existed.
This model broke down at the same time the "job for life" went away.
@cstross @AlisonW By 1990 I was a "countersignatory" to my regular drug dealers when they applied for passports.
But yes, they did do "consistency checks" between your assertions about your history and their documentary records. Including the "Jackel" "hole". They most certainly did *not* accept "my word is my bond", back as far as passports were formal documents.
@WellsiteGeo @AlisonW They did *random* checks. I never got queried about any of the passport or driving license photos I signed (back when I was a pharmacist in the 80s it was an occasional request).
@regordane @AlisonW Yes, but birth certificates were problematic—back in the day, spies used to obtain notarized copies of BCs of dead under-5s (there were a lot: no childhood disease vaccines!) and use those to apply for a passport under the dead kid's name.
... This shit is only going to end up with a national DNA database "owned" by the Home Office and operated by someone like Palantir.
@cstross @regordane @AlisonW
That was the procedure described by (IIRC) Frédéric Forsythe in "Day of the Jackle" - and that loophole was closed very shortly after publication.
Obviously, "our" spooks don't need such subterfuge for "our" passports. They can just get real 'fake' IDs.
@WellsiteGeo @regordane @AlisonW That, too, stopped being a thing when biometric databases came in: a spook gets *one* cover ID, thereafter their biometrics are on file in countries they've visited under that ID so a second ID using the same biometric data will get noticed immediately.
What a shame we can do the same informal attention of age today.
Shops that sell lottery tickets could sell you an inexpensive "I'm not under 18 ticket" that could be the use online as needed.
The logistics infrastructure is already there and shopkeepers are already trusted with checking age for other 'dangerous' items such as lottery tickets, tobacco, alcohol, knives and porn magazines (apparently).
Clearly far too difficult so we must have robust privacy invading ID verification instead 🙄🤦♂️
@simonzerafa @cstross @AlisonW The “Citizen Card” has been offered for years. However it’s not good enough for the Government because it just confirms your age and not if your mother came from Kolkata, or your sex assigned at birth to lock you out of the “wrong” public loo.
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