Monday I asked how many copies of your ID are out there. Today, what one of them did.

Monday I asked how many copies of your ID are out there. Today, what one of them did.

A friend of my wife's got a letter from the tax office. Not a fine — a seizure order. Money taken from her account.

She went in to ask what this was about. It turned out she had won money on an online gambling site. Won it, cashed it out, and never declared it.

Except she had never played. Someone had opened the account in her name, with her documents, taken the winnings, and left the tax bill behind. The tax office wasn't hunting a fraudster. It was hunting her.

7712.

That's how many people reported exactly this in Spain in 2024 — identity theft in online gambling alone, and only the ones who reported it. The problem is so common that the state built a protocol with its own name and its own website for it.

Look at where that protocol sits: at the very end. There is a procedure to prove it wasn't you. There is none to stop it being you in the first place.

She fixed it the only way available. She changed her ID number.

The copies are still out there.