Thursday, August 20, 2009

[hflfggqh] Multiple identities

Why not?

The government permits you only one driver's license and passport under only one name, and goes through considerable measures (providing multiple forms of ID when applying for one) to make sure you only get one. I'm guessing the reason is so the government can track you (as a criminal) and prevent you from getting multiple shares of a government service (maybe so you can only vote once?), for example only one social security number.

But in this age of identity theft, once an identity thief gets a hold of your one and only legal identity, they have access to your entire life.

If a stalker learns enough of your one and only legal identity, in today's information society, perhaps entering your name in a search engine, is enough to learn an uncomfortably large amount about your entire life.

Perhaps the government should permit multiple unconnected legal identities, or, get out of the unique identity business all together.

"If having multiple identities is made criminal, only criminals will have multiple identities."

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