[munin]

> The thief would have to physically resemble the victim's photo

Why? Show up to a government station with your birth certificate, SSN, some telephone and utility bills, and they'll take the thiefs picture and put it on an identity card with your name on it.

[zo1]

That sounds incredibly bad for a first-world country. If that was the case, I'd argue that the entire country is in collapse. As you then have no control over foreigners impersonating locals and manipulating something as serious as elections, never-mind bank-fraud.

Edit: Point being, this needs to be fixed ASAP if you are to move your country into the future. Fix the regulatory/state hurdles that prevent it from happening, and get yourselves National Identification that's secure. Things will flow positively from there.

[rphlx]

They don't use the SSN to check for prior IDs issued by other states and/or the Feds, and compare the applicant's photo/gender/age/height/eye color, etc to them first?

[adrr]

There's no network between all the systems.