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## The Evolving Technology of Identity Verification
The vulnerabilities that Kimberly McLean exploited in 1988 have been substantially addressed in the decades since. The specific path she took — obtaining a deceased child’s birth certificate, using it to obtain state identification, using that to obtain a legal name change, and using the name change to build a Social Security and documentary history — would encounter barriers at multiple points today that did not exist in 1988.
The most significant change is the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, which contains records of individuals whose deaths have been reported to the SSA. The Death Master File is now used to flag Social Security numbers associated with deceased individuals, and a new SSA number cannot be issued to someone using a name and birth certificate that match a deceased person on the file. This change directly addresses the specific mechanism Kimberly McLean used.
State vital records have been increasingly digitized and cross-referenced. Many states now have systems that link birth and death records within their jurisdictions and participate in national records-sharing initiatives. The practice of issuing certified birth certificates for deceased individuals without flagging their deceased status has been reformed in numerous jurisdictions.
Passport applications now include database checks that can identify discrepancies. The Real ID Act of 2005, implemented in the years that followed, established minimum federal standards for state-issued identification documents, including requirements for identity verification that would make the Idaho ID obtained by Kimberly McLean in 1988 substantially more difficult to replicate.