Fact-check of the main claims in “Roadblocks to obtaining government-issued ID” (Agorism Archives, 2021).

The article is opinionated and frames identity systems as an exclusionary state monopoly. Many structural points hold up, but several specifics are overstated, outdated, or incomplete. Here’s a claim-by-claim assessment based on current data (as of 2025–2026 sources).

Scale of the problem

• Claim: ~1 billion people have no access to government-issued ID.
  Verdict: Mostly accurate at the time of writing; now lower. World Bank ID4D estimates showed ~1 billion without official proof of identity around 2017–2018, falling to ~850 million by 2021 and ~800 million by 2024–2025. Roughly half are children whose births were never registered; the bulk live in low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Core structural claims

• Claim: The state’s monopoly + KYC rules exclude millions from employment, housing, banking, healthcare, SIMs, contracts, etc., with no easy appeal or alternative pathway if the state refuses ID.
  Verdict: Largely accurate. Lack of legal identity is widely documented as a barrier to services. There is generally no straightforward “earn an identity as an adult via effort/skills alone” route independent of birth registration or state recognition in most jurisdictions. Human-rights organizations (UNHCR, etc.) have long highlighted this gap.
• Claim: If you weren’t registered at birth or the country of birth is dangerous, standard passport/national ID applications are effectively impossible.
  Verdict: Substantially true in practice for many people. Delayed birth registration is often difficult or blocked for adults, and returning to an unsafe origin country is frequently not viable.

Specific pathways

• Skilled work visas require an existing passport:
  Mostly true. UK Skilled Worker visa guidance, for example, requires “a valid passport or other document that shows your identity and nationality.” Similar requirements apply in many other countries.
• Driver’s licenses require national ID/passport:
  Generally true in most places. Exceptions exist (e.g., some U.S. state programs), but they usually still need some form of identity documentation.
• California AB 60 (and similar New York programs) for undocumented people still require a foreign passport, national ID, or birth certificate:
  True. AB 60 allows California residents without proof of legal presence to get a driver’s license if they can prove identity and residency. Acceptable identity documents include a valid foreign passport, consular ID (e.g., matrícula consular), or certain national IDs. It does not help people with no prior identity documents from any country.
• Stateless passports / certificates of identity: Exist but states often refuse them; a vicious circle with residency requirements is common.
  Partially true. The 1954 Convention requires states to issue travel documents to recognized stateless persons lawfully staying in their territory. In practice, many countries require prior legal residence or formal recognition of statelessness, creating circular barriers. Issuance is uneven and often restricted.
• Asylum is generally only granted in cases of war; other persecution (abuse, political, cultural, LGBT, etc.) is often refused and people returned:
  Overstated. Asylum is available for a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group (which includes sexual orientation/gender identity in many jurisdictions). Grant rates vary widely by country of origin, claim type, and destination country. Political-opinion and certain social-group claims (including LGBT) frequently succeed; pure “war” is not the only or even primary ground in many systems. Returns do occur when claims fail.
• Regularization programs require existing passport/ID/birth certificate:
  Often true, limiting access for the fully undocumented.
• UN/Red Cross documents (Nansen passports, laissez-passer, emergency travel documents): Used to exist but are no longer available for everyday use.
  Mostly accurate. Historical Nansen passports (1922–1938) are long discontinued. Modern UN laissez-passer is mainly for UN staff on official business. ICRC emergency travel documents still exist in limited humanitarian cases but are temporary, single-journey, and not designed for daily-life use (jobs, rentals, etc.).
• Flag Theory / second passports / citizenship-by-investment: Require existing passport or birth certificate.
  True. Virtually all such programs require prior identity documentation.
• Shell companies / nominee structures: Still generally require government ID of the beneficial owner or directors.
  True under modern KYC/AML rules.
• Secondary proofs / paper trails (letters, medical records, etc.): More feasible in some common-law countries; largely useless elsewhere where only state ID is accepted.
  Largely accurate.
• Paper-tripping (using deceased people’s or cloned documents): No longer works due to shared databases.
  Generally true in developed countries with interconnected civil-registration and border systems.

Non-government alternatives

• Digitalcourage ID, World Passports, Memdeklaro: Can be obtained without prior government ID, but not formally accepted for KYC (visas, banking, employment). Anecdotal success in informal situations (mail, gyms, some rentals).
  Accurate. Digitalcourage sells a non-official photo ID with self-chosen data and explicitly notes it is not an official document and need not be accepted. World Service Authority (“World Passport”) has occasional de-facto acceptance (stamps/visas in some cases) and limited historical de-jure recognition by a handful of countries, but it is widely regarded as a fantasy/unofficial document and is not reliable. Memdeklaro is an open-source self-declaration generator; its own materials state it cannot be used for official purposes.
• Decentralized / self-sovereign identity (DID) systems: Many still depend on government-issued verifiable credentials as a base layer, or the resulting credentials are not accepted for everyday necessities.
  Largely true for current real-world deployments.

Overall assessment

The article correctly identifies a real and serious problem: hundreds of millions of people lack legal identity, and the architecture of modern identity + KYC systems creates high barriers with few accessible on-ramps for those completely outside the system. Many of the listed practical roadblocks are accurate.

It is weaker when it generalizes (e.g., asylum “only for war”) or implies near-total impossibility in every case. Some pathways (certain U.S. state licenses, limited humanitarian documents, secondary evidence in specific jurisdictions) exist but are narrow and still require some form of prior documentation in most instances.

The piece is best read as a critical overview of structural exclusion rather than a comprehensive, neutral legal guide. The core diagnosis—that there is no reliable, widely available “last-resort” way for an adult with no prior documents to obtain recognized legal identity purely through effort—remains substantially correct.