7 ms·

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, socia

by sieep 6mo ago

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

abustamam 6mo ago
I think they're talking about proving your identity to a non govt entity. A few things that come to mind are any platform with a KYC, they require you to upload your ID and assure you they're secure with a little lock icon.
- masklinn 6mo ago
  Even proving your identity to a government entity is non-trivial, as can be seen by the administration trying to use that as a new poll tax.
  - abustamam 6mo ago
    When I needed to get my newborn daughter's social security card I went to the local SS office, only to be turned away because I did not have an appointment. So I went home, finally got an appointment after an hour on the phone, trying to explain why I didn't have her SS card (apparently "it never arrived" did not compute), went back the next day with my passport card to provide as proof of identity. Only for them to say "we don't accept passport cards as ID. We can use your license though!" Baffling.
swiftcoder 6mo ago
> I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card Neither of those are accepted by various states' voter id laws, nor can you reliably board an airplane with them since RealID. The only foolproof identity card in the US appears to be a passport (which, you know, global federal identity card... exactly what the folks against universal ids dislike)
- otterley 6mo ago
  My research suggests that all U.S. states that require identification at the polls accept a driving license as a form of valid photo ID. Are you aware of any that don’t?
  - 5upplied_demand 6mo ago
    > My research suggests that all U.S. states that require identification at the polls accept a driving license as a form of valid photo ID. Not today. However, there is a bill in the Senate, that the President is demanding to be passed, that would eliminate this reality. https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/03/17/save-america-act-what-to-know/89062933007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/03/17/save-amer...
    - jp191919 6mo ago
      >Records from a federal citizenship verification tool show that just 0.04% of voter verification cases were returned as noncitizens in August 2025. Seems like this is just one of those "feel-good" laws. A waste of time and money.
      - gzread 6mo ago
        It's not about eliminating voter fraud - it appears to be about eliminating large swathes of legitimate voters, largely in correlation with how they are expected to vote.
- hedora 6mo ago
  The federal government is trying to create problems. For instance, a Real ID won't be good enough to vote this fall if SAVE passes: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/18/byron-donalds/can-voters-use-real-id-to-vote-under-save-act/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/18/byron-dona... There are also a bunch of other gotchas: Original birth certificates and all currently-issued military IDs are not acceptable, for instance (even though the bill lists birth certificates and military IDs as acceptable, there are carve-outs to ban the common cases). Good luck getting a passport between now and then.
Congeec 6mo ago
The identity issuer - the government - already has the your privacy. If you have a unique identifier from the government which websites can call the government with to verify your identity, you won't lose any privacy. All the websites get is just a unique string, no date of birth, no name, no address. This approach is the cornerstone of oauth/oidc.
sigmoid10 6mo ago
Not everyone has (or can have) a driver's license and a social security card literally says it is *not* for identification because it lacks even the most basic aspects. But since the US never managed to come up with an actual system, companies started using SSNs like an identity verifier, because it is the one thing everyone has across every state. But that also makes identity theft or credit fraud trivial in the US compared to other countries.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  > a social security card literally says it is not for identification It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time. My parent's cards did, but mine does not. Also, I'm old (for this forum at least), so this isn't a recent change.
  - zimpenfish 6mo ago
    > It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time. Don't know about "a long long time" but the feds have been treating Social Security Cards as identification since 1943 (military, some agencies) or 1963 (IRS) (cf [0]) [0] https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social-security-card-say-it-can-t-be-used-as-id https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social...
    - dylan604 6mo ago
      I think you're misunderstanding why they are requesting an SSN. You cannot use an SSN to do an in person ID like a photo ID. Same reason a birth certificate cannot be used as an ID. These documents can be used to look up information about you, and a lot of places might use your SSN as a database unique ID, but that kind of info is not identification when someone shouts "papers!" at you. conflating the two meanings of identification feels deliberate at this point
- zimpenfish 6mo ago
  > companies started using SSNs like an identity verifier Probably because USGOV said it is[0] "In 1943 a presidential executive order directed the military and other government agencies to use the number for identification purposes, and in 1961 the Internal Revenue Service began using the number for taxpayer identification." [0] https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social-security-card-say-it-can-t-be-used-as-id https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social...
gclaramunt 6mo ago
You must not live in the US or have very odd patterns, I'm positive a majority of the US population have free credit monitoring due to the multiple SSN data leaks. The situation is so bad that the SSA has to explicitly state: "Social Security card is not an identification document" https://www.ssa.gov/blog/en/posts/2023-03-23.html https://www.ssa.gov/blog/en/posts/2023-03-23.html
- pessimizer 6mo ago
  Ah, yes, I'm sure the crap that they make up next week won't ever leak anything.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

by sieep 6mo ago

abustamam 6mo ago

I think they're talking about proving your identity to a non govt entity. A few things that come to mind are any platform with a KYC, they require you to upload your ID and assure you they're secure with a little lock icon.

masklinn 6mo ago
Even proving your identity to a government entity is non-trivial, as can be seen by the administration trying to use that as a new poll tax.
- abustamam 6mo ago
  When I needed to get my newborn daughter's social security card I went to the local SS office, only to be turned away because I did not have an appointment. So I went home, finally got an appointment after an hour on the phone, trying to explain why I didn't have her SS card (apparently "it never arrived" did not compute), went back the next day with my passport card to provide as proof of identity. Only for them to say "we don't accept passport cards as ID. We can use your license though!" Baffling.

swiftcoder 6mo ago

> I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card Neither of those are accepted by various states' voter id laws, nor can you reliably board an airplane with them since RealID. The only foolproof identity card in the US appears to be a passport (which, you know, global federal identity card... exactly what the folks against universal ids dislike)

otterley 6mo ago
My research suggests that all U.S. states that require identification at the polls accept a driving license as a form of valid photo ID. Are you aware of any that don’t?
- 5upplied_demand 6mo ago
  > My research suggests that all U.S. states that require identification at the polls accept a driving license as a form of valid photo ID. Not today. However, there is a bill in the Senate, that the President is demanding to be passed, that would eliminate this reality. https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/03/17/save-america-act-what-to-know/89062933007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/03/17/save-amer...
  - jp191919 6mo ago
    >Records from a federal citizenship verification tool show that just 0.04% of voter verification cases were returned as noncitizens in August 2025. Seems like this is just one of those "feel-good" laws. A waste of time and money.
    - gzread 6mo ago
      It's not about eliminating voter fraud - it appears to be about eliminating large swathes of legitimate voters, largely in correlation with how they are expected to vote.
hedora 6mo ago
The federal government is trying to create problems. For instance, a Real ID won't be good enough to vote this fall if SAVE passes: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/18/byron-donalds/can-voters-use-real-id-to-vote-under-save-act/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/18/byron-dona... There are also a bunch of other gotchas: Original birth certificates and all currently-issued military IDs are not acceptable, for instance (even though the bill lists birth certificates and military IDs as acceptable, there are carve-outs to ban the common cases). Good luck getting a passport between now and then.

Congeec 6mo ago

The identity issuer - the government - already has the your privacy. If you have a unique identifier from the government which websites can call the government with to verify your identity, you won't lose any privacy. All the websites get is just a unique string, no date of birth, no name, no address. This approach is the cornerstone of oauth/oidc.

sigmoid10 6mo ago

Not everyone has (or can have) a driver's license and a social security card literally says it is *not* for identification because it lacks even the most basic aspects. But since the US never managed to come up with an actual system, companies started using SSNs like an identity verifier, because it is the one thing everyone has across every state. But that also makes identity theft or credit fraud trivial in the US compared to other countries.

dylan604 6mo ago
> a social security card literally says it is not for identification It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time. My parent's cards did, but mine does not. Also, I'm old (for this forum at least), so this isn't a recent change.
- zimpenfish 6mo ago
  > It no longer says this, and has not for a long long time. Don't know about "a long long time" but the feds have been treating Social Security Cards as identification since 1943 (military, some agencies) or 1963 (IRS) (cf [0]) [0] https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social-security-card-say-it-can-t-be-used-as-id https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social...
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    I think you're misunderstanding why they are requesting an SSN. You cannot use an SSN to do an in person ID like a photo ID. Same reason a birth certificate cannot be used as an ID. These documents can be used to look up information about you, and a lot of places might use your SSN as a database unique ID, but that kind of info is not identification when someone shouts "papers!" at you. conflating the two meanings of identification feels deliberate at this point
zimpenfish 6mo ago
> companies started using SSNs like an identity verifier Probably because USGOV said it is[0] "In 1943 a presidential executive order directed the military and other government agencies to use the number for identification purposes, and in 1961 the Internal Revenue Service began using the number for taxpayer identification." [0] https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social-security-card-say-it-can-t-be-used-as-id https://www.straightdope.com/21341325/why-does-my-old-social...

gclaramunt 6mo ago

You must not live in the US or have very odd patterns, I'm positive a majority of the US population have free credit monitoring due to the multiple SSN data leaks. The situation is so bad that the SSA has to explicitly state: "Social Security card is not an identification document" https://www.ssa.gov/blog/en/posts/2023-03-23.html https://www.ssa.gov/blog/en/posts/2023-03-23.html

pessimizer 6mo ago
Ah, yes, I'm sure the crap that they make up next week won't ever leak anything.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]