Why do different government entities insist that you provide physical proof of something, instead of just checking their collective data base?

To keep people from stealing other people’s identity so easily.
Edited to add: plus it might teach her to not misplace important documents.

You want the convenience of a massive government database, but most other peoples would like a bit of an obstacle to cede their privacy to all the various government agencies.

You want the DMV to have access to your social security info? You want the county records people to have access to your driving record? You want your income history available to any low level clerk?

Sorry, I want a modicum of privacy.

Well, you could make it so the information is available only to certain people within the agency. Gosh, to get a copy of your driving record you just have to go to the police station and ask any low level clerk to get it for you.
All of my employers have a copy of my DL and SS card in their files.

And what makes the department of vital statistics any more secure than any other agency?

I think the process was made harder because of hysteria over 9/11 and immigrants.

I moved back to Illinois in 2007 and was surprised they wanted a physical social security card and birth certificate for my drivers license application.

My mother has had a drivers license in the same state for over 50 years. To get her a state ID card when she stopped driving, they wanted a social security card and birth certificate.

I think they just want to be able to charge you for copies.

Working for the government for over 20 years, I can tell you that now, government agencies are chronically short staffed. If they weren’t going to require you to send copies of these documents, they’d have to have staff to look it up on your behalf and possibly makes copies of it. If they didn’t have specific staff to do it, then the person who processes your documents would have to do it, which might mean double or triple the time it takes them to process them now. That’s my take on it – not only do they not have the capability to do it (because of what @zenvelo pointed out) but if they did, it would take more to maintain the database and it would take more staff to do this work for you.

The way it is now, you are responsible to provide what they ask you for, the way when you apply for a driver’s license you must provide proof of ID that they ask you for.

The Department of Vital Statistics would be responsible for maintaining their data base. Certain people in The SS office would simply have access to it. How long does it take to access a database? How long does it take to access Fluther? And to make copies just specify “2” when you print it, hit a button and done. We’re literally talking about seconds.
If you bring in your BC, and they have to make copies, they’d have to go to the copy machine, or physically put it in the scanner, or whatever, and it would take longer than simply printing off copies.

@Dutchess_III: But if you have to look someone up, in a database of thousands or millions of names, it’s going to take longer than Fluther.

I’m not arguing about it, just giving my thoughts as a government worker, knowing how things are chronically short staffed. If you feel that it should be doable for little or no extra cost, send the suggestion to your elected officials who are in charge of that office and let them look into it.

No longer than it takes to type in a name on Facebook! It has to search through billions of names, and not just in America, and it does so instantly. For a government database, just a name and maybe a SS number and boom. It’s done. If they charged it would be fine. You have to pay to get the duplicate information anyway.

I wonder what they’ll do with the birth certificates when they get them. Physically scan them and store them in their local database? That would take a lot more time than pulling them up, already scanned. Maybe make a copy ant then phsycially put it in a hard copy folder? Again, major time waster.

Discuss it with your elected officials!

@Dutchess_III But you act as if a single database would have all that input from different departments and different states and different towns and cities. California drivers license, Kansas insurance, Oregon license plates, Mississippi birth certificate, Social Security number issued when you lived in Michigan.

In other words, you want a massive all inclusive single US database.

And @Dutchess_III, what @zenvelo is talking about not only is massive, but it costs money to administer (IT Dept).

@jca quit bring up things that are non issues. The speed would be negligible. It IS negligible. it would also be a non issue because each entity already has their own massive data bases that are administered by IT, anyway.

@zenvelo I can see how that could be a problem, having all that information in one place, if someone was able to hack in. But why can’t they hack in now, anyway? But I agree, it’s a good security precaution.

Also, now I’m wondering why birth certificates are held exclusively at the state capitols and social security info isn’t?

I think you watch too much Criminal Minds. Information is not that easily at our finger tips. Even if it should be or is supposed to be.
Computers have glitches, are slow or always being updated.

@Dutchess_III In California, birth (and death) certificates are held at the County Recorder’s office, not the state.

Social Security is a Federal Program, not a state program. And on the front of my SS card it says “Not to be used for identification”. Also, it is possible to get a second SS#.

What about Facebook, @chyna? Twitter? Law enforcement data bases? Wikipedia? Google? Sure they have glitches, but they work 99.99% of the time. Information IS that easily at our fingertips, if you have the and authority to access it. I mean, what do you want to know?

Ours are held in Topeka, but you can order them online. I would think birth certificates would be as much as a federal requirement as birth certificates, but I can see how they’d be more of a state thing.

Speaking of data bases, here is an interesting link.
The National Vital Statistics System is the oldest and most successful example of inter-governmental data sharing in Public Health and the shared relationships, standards, and procedures form the mechanism by which NCHS collects and disseminates the Nation’s official vital statistics.

@Dutchess_III: I made a very good and very appropriate point that if you feel this is a doable thing, you should bring it up with your elected officials. They are better able to put the plan into action or explain to you why it’s not possible. Otherwise you’re arguing here with people who can’t do anything about it.

Oh its doable and I’m sure it’s been considered but not implemented due to security concerns.

@Dutchess_III: OK, well then there goes a very good reason why it’s not been done.

I’m checking with an IT guy now on the reason why. I just guessed.
The last job I had, teaching at a high school diploma completion program, I had the headquarters were about 60 miles west of us. They had satellite locations all over the state. My boss oversaw 4 locations locally. I noticed that when ever she needed information on any of the students, grades, whatever, she had to send out an email to each individual teacher asking them to send them to her. I asked if it would make her life easier if she could just access all the student files from her location on the computer. She said that would be a dream come true!
I talked to our IT guy and he looked at me funny and said, “Yeah we can do that! Why didn’t we think of that before?!”
So he did it. After he was done he said, “You guys are going to be the experiment for this. If it works I’m gonna go back to headquarters and say, “This is how we do it here!”
I just messaged him on FB to see if he set the rest of the locations up that way. Also, asked him what reasons the government wouldn’t have a common database so they can share information quickly and easily among themselves. Streamline and easy is not the government’s way, though!

There are policy reasons that databases are not commingled. There are laws on the book that do not allow access to information that might hinder the purchase of a gun. That is a Federal law that was sponsored by the NRA.

When doing a back ground check what are they looking for, and where are they looking? The government would decide who has access to it, and I don’t think gun dealers would be on that list. Only certain government employees.