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by sofixa 806 days ago
> It was impossible for my wife to provide an up-to-date (less than six months old) translated copy of her Chinese birth certificate

I find this hilarious. It's the same in France, you need an up to date "original" of your birth certificate. But why? It's just saying you (full names) were born in XXX on a specific date. There's nothing about it that could change, really. In the country I'm from, your parents get one original on birth, and you can ask for copies from the town hall. But in France multiple administrations were extremely bothered that they weren't "original" (because they say DUPLICATA on them, and in French you get a shitty A4 with a stamped signature one can print at home, but they insist on an original) and weren't in French.
1 comments
dpeckett 806 days ago
I actually looked into this, apparently its popular across western Europe (not just Germany) and a relic of historical times when the states didn't have centralized birth and death registries. I believe the limited validity and Apostille requirement is a medieval method to combat fraud.

As a new world Australian, the fact this remains in force is completely insane. In Australia the authorities can trivially query the birth and deaths register to verify the validity of certificates.

In Germanys defense, centralized registries were used by the Nazi regime to facilitate the Holocaust.

Anyway Biometric passports/ids pretty much completely supersede this use-case and can be as equally decentralized.

link
sofixa 806 days ago
> Anyway Biometric passports/ids pretty much completely supersede this use-case and can be as equally decentralized.

Those are already in place in France, but some administrations still ask for a paper original (or scan of original) of your birth certificate. However some others have implemented some government-backed scheme where it automatically fetches your birth records from a government source (idk how it works behind the scenes) and it just works.

It was the same with a proof of where you live, it had to a be a bill in your name for electricity or something similar, but now it can just query popular sources such as the main electricity provider and just work.

link