| Notaries public can verify your identity for much cheaper ($2.00 in Georgia). I got a document for state pension in the mail; it had instructions for creating an online account with a default username and password. Bad idea, right? But to activate the account, I would have to sign a document saying "I have created an online account with <username>" and have it notarized. Social media companies could use notaries to verify identity tomorrow. 3 problems I can see with notarizing documents:
1) Paper signatures / scanned documents. It costs money and time to verify uploaded scanned documents, and users could try to forge documents.
Solution: some notaries can sign documents digitally with their publickey: https://www.notarypublicstamps.com/articles/online-notary-di.... I'm not sure how secure this is or how the certificate authority (which publickeys to trust?) works since I'm not a notary, but it seems promising.
2) Notary fraud: unscrupulous notaries could verify impersonators. But if caught, they would lose their license and also be charged with a felony. 99% of us aren't important enough for someone to take that risk.
3) Users losing control of their account at a later date. Just because someone associates their identity with their account doesn't mean that an imposter could take control of the account at a later point in time. But that's what 2fa is for, and you could still ask the website to take your account down, or go through notary again to fully reset your account. This problem is common to every system that doesn't have 24/7, social-engineering-proof customer support. Anyway, I just think notaries are good way to verify identity. It's also more democratic -- almost anyone without a criminal record can become one with a few hours of training and a small fee. The government has a responsibility to make it accessible because it is required for many government and legal processes. It's worth noting that this is for the US, and notary systems also vary by state. There are some 3rd party companies that seem to standardize the verification process a bit, which probably adds some added fee. Trusting the notary systems of all 50 states, or these 3rd-party companies, can add risk because impostors will use the weakest link. But I think the added volume would bring attention and scrutiny to these systems and hopefully pressure them to become more secure. Lastly, public notaries usually don't make much money. Many people do it to feel civically engaged and help their neighbors, as well as making a few bucks on the side. I think an influx of millions of social media users would either overwhelm or bemuse them. Would be interested to see comments from actual public notaries, what do y'all think? |