[thatjamesdude]

That's side stepping the real problem very neatly though.

Speaking as a citizen of a country with "real" identification laws, how would you like the banks to identify you?

SSN? Absolutely not. That number is not meant to be used as formal identification, it's completely unprotected.

America has a particular weakness to identify fraud because you don't have an identity system.

My ID number is formally defined in law, protected and verified by various check sums built into the number (like so many tokens out there). Banks are required, by law, to ensure they have identified the right individual before transacting and they carry the full burden if they get it wrong.

The SSN in the US is sequential and I never fail to laugh at the idea of forcing your banks to verify you with such a flimsy structure. It's just gonna make the problem worse

[ryandrake]

Maybe we should be going back to local banks, personal relationships and a real-life web of trust? I remember long time ago when you could get a bank account without any identification at all. The bank tellers knew you by name from talking to you at the grocery store. The bank manager hunts with you. The owner of the bank has seen you on the local golf course.

These days, you're CUSTOMER #52219945 at SuperUltraMegaBank with such-and-such mother's maiden name. The local bank employees live 80 miles away where there are cheaper houses, and to them you're just one of thousands of customers in their corporate database. But, you never even see each other because almost all of the banking you do is via their web site, with the occasional telephone call that gets answered by a teller in southeast Asia. It's totally impersonal.