Why would a bank not want to identify their customers? That is what customers want! Do you want someone to just walk up to the teller and say, “Yes ma’am. My name is Paul and I’d like to close out my account.” So in your world where the bank doesn’t verify that the person closing out the account and taking the money is actually you the bank has just handed all of your money over to someone else. That would be a bad thing, no? A good bank who values their customers and acts to ensure that their customers money is safe will demand some type of identification before they just start handing money to people. Just because I say I’m someone doesn’t mean I am. In your world where banks don’t ask for identification I could walk into a bank and say I’m Donald Trump and I want $500,000 from my account. And because of your world of no identification checks I would steal $500,000 of Donald Trumps money.
Also, how do you prove authority over an account if you can’t prove who you are? The banks means of identifying you could be a finger print scan or perhaps a photo they have taken of you or maybe a retina scan. Anything the bank feels they need to ensure your money stays safe while the bank holds on to it and you agree to give. In order to prove authority over something the person to whom you are trying to prove something must first know who you are.
So if you would, please, explain how you prove authority over something. Because to me you’ve got to prove who you are before anyone will accept whatever authority you claim to have.
How do you know what people “want”? If you ask them, most will tell you they “want” pretty much whatever they have now, because they can’t be bothered really thinking about what could change. And most of the rest will “want” something completely nutty - like socialism.
It would, yes; and that’s just what happens when you confuse identity with authority - that’s what identity theft is all about: walking into the bank and saying “my name is kingmonkey - see, it says so right here on this card! - please empty my account”, and the bank will do it, because the bank confuses the name on the card with authority over the account. That’s exactly what I don’t want.
No you couldn’t, because the bank wouldn’t care if you were Donald Trump - for all I know, your real name might be “Donald Trump” - there are probably hundreds of "Donald Trump"s in the world. I know of least five other people who same name as me within a hundred miles of where I live (one of them’s even related)
A simple example: how do you log in to this site? Did you need to provide ID when you signed up? Do you need submit finger prints and retinal scans to log back in? Does the LvMI even know your name - or care?
There are other ways of providing identification other than a card.
Your point being? If banks don’t require you to prove who you are then why does matter how many Pauls there are?
Passwords can be stolen too Paul. And I’m not entrusting the LvMI with thousands of dollars or personal information either. There is a huge difference between a website with a message board and a bank with my life savings.
Once you go to a bank and open an account, you and the bank know who you are at that very moment. Now a piece of paper stating that the bank knows you and you know the bank could be given to you to identify yourself. This has been done for hundreds of years.
nother, even better approach is to use number accounts. You do not need govt to identify yourself. It is the other way around, if I had a bunch of gold I would want to make sure the bank identifies itself and ensures I can trust it with my deposit.
First: Paper can be lost and stolen. What good is a piece of paper to identify myself if someone stole it from me or I lost it or it got destroyed? And does that not become de facto identification, which appears to be something you are completely against. From my understanding an ID is anything that shows evidence that you are who you say you are. A piece of paper issued by the bank to you would be your identification for that particular bank and that particular account. In fact the dictionary definition of “identification” is “an act of identifying : the state of being identified” or “evidence of identity.”
Second: We aren’t talking about government identification we are talking about free markert voluntary ID’s. There is no reason to not believe that in a libertarian society people would want to carry IDs for any number of reasons (such as a bank requiring one before any money can be withdrawn from a bank account to protect the account holder from theft) and private businesses spring up to provide a secure means of identifying yourself.
Third: If you are taking a bunch of gold to a bank for deposit there is a reason why you are taking it to THAT bank. It is because that bank has built up a reputation of honesty, thrift, and security. How does the bank identify itself? What does that even mean anyway? And why would a person NOT want a banking institution to verify the identities of persons withdrawing money from their accounts? Speaking for myself and no one else, I personally like the fact that the bank ask to see my ID before I withdraw cash from my account. At least I know they are attempting to create security for the money I have entrusted with them.
Or do you mean I can take a cross continent trip and simply present the bank with a slip of paper and that’ll verify my ownership of the bank account on the paper? That seems very insecure.
Government IDs fail at protecting Identity, I’d hope for a much stronger ID security system from a private bank or ID company.
Your bank account is numbered today. Your ATM card’s magnetic strip is the account number and your PIN is your access number. Combined with possession of the ATM card itself, that is double verification of authorization.
And as its been previously pointed out, banks are trying to determine authority to access, not identification.
If you lost your credit card would you say, “I’m protected, because they can’t use it with out my ID.” Of course not. You would deactivate your card.
Having your account linked to your identity enables identity theft. If your account is accessed by fullfilling verification of authority, instead of proof of identity, the security of your entire idenity does not depend on the weakest link in the security of your various accounts.
A slip of paper with a number on it is not identification, its a key.
If you open a numbered account, accessed by a password or code, the bank does not need to know a single bit of personal information in order to secure that account.
The obvious objection to that is that if someone steals the number and the code, they could use your account. But ID doesn’t actually solve that dilemma. You can only prove identity in person. A credit card, even though linked to your identity, can be used by someone other than you in a variety of ways.
And if you give someone the neccesary information to determine your identity, you have given them enough information to access accounts you hold with other people.