(no subject)

[liralen]

It's the oddest thing. I think I lost my birth certificate a few years back. It may well have even been a decade or so ago. With my passport and my driver's license I just hadn't needed it at all. Nearly eight years ago, an ex-boyfriend of mine found the information needed to get birth certificates from the Ohio department of records, and I'd written the information down dutifully.

Just this weekend, John went through a box of old papers, most of them we threw out, but in the midst of it all was this one piece of paper with two sticky notes that had the phone numbers of the places I needed to write and/or talk to with an amount of money for the record and an address and a list of what information they needed to issue the certificate. The list of data wasn't that long. It seemed silly that I could send just that little bit of data in and they'd just give me my identity back.

I called. On a Saturday. So I got their recorded message that mentioned, of all things, a web site! So I went there, ordered a copy of my birth certificate, with the requisite information.

I wondered if they could send it to me, without the number from my previous certificate. And then, sure enough, today, my certificate arrived in the mail. Wow.

So I'm me, again, with a nice, crisp, official birth certificate that even smells official.

Comments

[bryant]

I did that a while back, to get a passport. It was surprisingly easy.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

It is! Almost makes me think that any birth announcement could well be used to get a bogus birth certificate, especially if in the announcment the mother's name is different than the father's, which is happening more and more frequently these days. Of course, they might check to see who is asking for it, I guess and if the name's different they might refuse or ask for extra stuff. That would make some sense...

... but the ease disconcerted me, mildly.

[bryant]

The following is theoretical; I've read up on this stuff but haven't ever tried it.

It has always been pretty easy to get a fake birth certificate; the trick to fake identity is getting one that nobody else is using. Best bet is to find someone who died very young, and request their birth certificate. I hear small towns are best because they're less likely to crosscheck against death records.

A birth certificate by itself doesn't usually get you much, but with a birth certificate and a good explanation of why you've waited so long, you can get a social security number. That's probably the most difficult part of the process. I've read that claiming to have been raised overseas or in a religious cult works.

But yeah. Not a wildly difficult process. I find it kind of interesting simply in that we managed to survive as a country for so long without tight controls. It's a good reminder that very tight controls are maybe not extremely necessary.