> plenty of cases If so, can you mention just a few more? The address change fraud is a real problem, but the personnummer is used for identification and not

> plenty of cases If so, can you mention just a few more? The address change fraud is a real problem, but the personnummer is used for identification and not authentication in that case as well. The government cannot mandate all citizens to have e-IDs, so other alternatives to change your address must be provided. Since having an up to date address is mandatory, this alternative process must also be accessible (e.g. the closest tax office might be far away, so requiring the alternative process to be in-person would be impractical). So the alternative process is that you fill in a form, sign it, and send it to the tax agency. To specify whose address is being changed, the form asks for your personnummer (it also asks for your name, but neither is intended to authenticate you). As verification, the tax agency sends a letter to your current address. If the fraudster is able to intercept your mail, or if you do not notice the verification letter, the fraud is successful. The e-ID alternative cannot be easily made opt-out, because the people who need the manual process also would be unable to opt out electronically. So as it stands, it’s opt-in, and almost everyone should opt into it. Is this a mess, and a consequence of having a mandatory public address registry? Yes. But the personnummer isn’t used for authentication anywhere in this mess.