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June 09, 2004

I'd like Michael Howard's bollocks, please...

Government website security continually amazes me. On the one hand, there's a nine-step process to sign up to do your tax return online. To buy a tube ticket, you have to pick a password so secure that I can never remember mine; turning a 12-second in-person transaction into ten minutes online. There's progress.

Fortunately, one government agency has done away with all that petty virtual bureaucracy. As Andrew Ducker points out, you can sign up to give all your internal organs away with no form of User ID or password whatsoever. Or, indeed, anybody else's internal organs. I'm sure you can think of somebody.

Posted by Alison Scott at June 9, 2004 08:55 PM

Comments

You can't beat Ken when it comes to online red tape :)
I remember the first time i paid my congestion charge online...

Posted by: Adam Field at June 9, 2004 11:27 PM

Hmmm... buying your tube ticket online. How does it fit in the machines?

Posted by: James Shields at June 10, 2004 08:03 AM

It's a continuing card (the Oystercard), which you top-up through online payments. But it's a ten-step process online, whereas in person you walk up to the machine, touch your Oystercard to a reader, type in the amount of money you want (£50), insert your credit card, retrieve your credit card, and touch your Oystercard to the reader again. No validation of any kind, very quick.

Posted by: Alison Scott at June 10, 2004 08:14 AM

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