[Cyber Wolf]

Part of the problem is, it's hard to unfalliably identify someone on paper alone. Much of the identification is removed from the actual person. Even a photograph isn't entirely conclusive, what with hair dye, colored contacts, make up and dental adjustments, all generally affordable to whomever wants, and clothes can easily hide just how fat or skinny someone really is. Just about all business that deals with the possibility of identity theft is done on paper and removed from the actual physical person.

To come up with a (nearly) infalliable identification network, there needs to be something from the physical body of the person with This SSN, since SSNs are still unique to each person, that can not be replicated by people who would want to do it. DNA comes to mind. It's pretty well established that the likelihood of two unrelated people having the exact same DNA comes up to odds that equal less than one for every person on the planet. As far as America and her SSN system is concerned, DNA samples would need to be taken and stored along with the issuance of an SSN number to a person, upon birth, upon naturalization (or whatever the step is called when immigrants offically become US citizens and get their own SSN card)...

Leaving all privacy issues aside, the biggest kink in this would be ease of proving who you are to someone or trying to get proof. Let's use Sprint as the example: Sprint would need an offical validation of someone being who they say they are before opening an account. That would require either Sprint, a third party or the customer to go somewhere to submit a strand of hair to be tested and compared with what's recorded with his SSN. That's a lot of extra time and extra steps just to get a cell phone. It's just easier, faster and less of a headache for everyone involved to just rely on offical documents, detatched as they are. And as we all know, with speed comes the increased chances of mistakes being made.

The idea is that to get an official document you need to convince the government you are who you are and how easily convinced the government is sometimes relies on how good/bad a day the civil servant processing your paperwork has had. They're human, things get overlooked, stuff slips through. It's a matter of getting the most work done in the least amount of time. Paperwork allows for that. For a driver's license, for example, it's almost all done via paperwork (and renewals can be done online because the DMV assumes all your information still pertains to the same physical person) and the only point that could really blow your cover is showing up for the photo, but how would they know you're really you? All they know is what's on the paper and paper has a bad habit of lying and telling stories.