In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…
> You could have a notary vouch that you're a licensed driver, or have a college degree, visited a certain country, etc. Humans, generally, are very bad at caching document fraud. It wouldn't be a vouch for a licensed driver but instead it would be a vouch for "a bit of plastic that looked like a driving license to me". There is lots of sophisticated fraud and often automated solutions have a much higher rate of dete…
The main issue is minimizing cost. Dot com companies and banks don't want to pay for this so they peg online identities and account security to SMS effectively pushing off the problem to cellular companies. Cellular companies lack the competence to handle IAM. Opening a branch in every city is very expensive and companies don't want to even pay ~$10 for an offshore script reader to check a SMS code and verify "public information" off a credit report.
Credit card companies that are already liable for fraud usually settle for SSN+DOB, ID scans and aforementioned Equifax data verification because fraud losses are cheaper than in person due diligence.