Anna Rowe

I don’t agree for all. Some are easy to spot but it’s putting the responsibility on the targets not the abusers/fraudsters. The platforms must pay for a secure goverment based verification system. Not on the platform itself. The technology to do this can be created for anything.

The problem is that when you do that, you also open the users to risks of fraud, such as identity theft. Having such delicate info online to prove who is real on facebook also allows fraudsters to get you in debt & may leave victims unable to prove it wasn’t them.

I think this would be difficult if government based. I’ve not heard of hacks to these systems before.

It happens all the time. And you can never really know all vulnerabilities of the sustem until someone breaches it. Companies house is governmental body & doesn’t even do obvious checks when you register a company - allowing fraud. I would not trust it with my passport details.

I don’t think passports or driving licences are a good or fair method of verification as they can be duped easily but also not everyone has either of these.

So what do you propose as a verification method that would be foolproof?

I think something like NI numbers which are held by goverment bases. Everyone has one at 16. It would increase the age limit on SM too which is no bad thing. I’m sure an encrypted link or some kind of biometric from input to goverment bases can be created.

That would not work for all countries - how do you protect from a scammer registering an account in USA and pretending to be in UK? Also I remember applying for one without much checks so would that be open to fraud too? I am not trying to be negative, just see the reality.