[pjc50]

I have some very bad news for you how ID works in countries that don't have national ID systems: companies use all sorts of awful hacks instead.

The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills.

[ben_w]

> The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills.

Spent the last few months trying to explain to a randomly changing E.ON representative how unacceptable it was for them to send bills with my name on it to a non-existent address.

I moved out of the country in 2018.

They've offered me £10 credit. That I can't use, because I left the country.

I need to gather all the emails together and send them to the ombudsman, but there's around 80 emails now.

[hyperman1]

I've always vaguely wondered how the US knows who to tax, if they have no complete, trustworthy register of who the citizens are and where they live. It presumably works, I just don't understand how.

[pjc50]

They rely on a number of inefficient proxy systems, like the UK: making employers keep track of the tax of employees, and making all the banks report "suspicious" transactions.

The US even tries to make its overseas nationals pay tax. As a result, everyone everywhere in the world who wants to get paid by Amazon has to sign a US tax form saying they're not a US taxpayer.

[htrp]

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/v...

The answer is goodwill and doing the right thing.

[crote]

How does that even work these days? Taking a picture of a bill physically mailed to you is bad enough, but all of my utility bills nowadays are nothing more than an email! How's that supposed to prove anything?

I mean, I guess you could do something with the DKIM signature, but good luck getting non-technical people to forward a mail in a way which leaves that intact. Realistically the best you're getting is a butchered screenshot.