Requiring papers to prove one's own identity and familial relationships is anathema to the traditions of Common Law. Of course, this tradition is being undermi

Requiring papers to prove one's own identity and familial relationships is anathema to the traditions of Common Law. Of course, this tradition is being undermined left and right for the sake of the convenience, prejudices, and the power to control, of the ruling classes. And we go along with it, because there are some defensible reasons for doing so. It's why I prefer online services that allow users to pick their own names. Here, I'm logfromblammo, and that's all anybody needs to know about me. In contrast, on Facebook, the terms of service require me to link my account to the identity I use for official interactions with the government, which is in turn linked to the name my parents gave me at birth. Without descending into the identity derpfest propagated by some right-leaning libertarians, controlling my own identity means that it is more difficult to hurt me by hacking documents linked to my government identity. The more private businesses use the government identity exclusively, the more identity fraud and identity theft can become a problem. This type of DNA-collecting dragnet reinforces the paradigm "you are who the government/company/computer says you are" over "you are who you claim to be". Getting sent to the vice principal's office to be disciplined for something that another person, enrolled at my high school with the same name as mine, had done is as close as I ever want to get to that. I got yelled at, for their mistake in identification. I am the only person who can really be sure that I am me, and I don't trust others not to screw that up--because they keep on screwing it up. Asking for someone's "papers" to prove anything is never going to be something I could support unconditionally. Whenever you do that, you're taking away someone's agency to be in control of their own life.