..I'm more concerned that criminal gangs use first generation iMacs to steal our identities. Maybe Jobs' mob hid secret powers to steal identities within the depths of Mr. Ive's designer silicon?

On a more serious note, was the stock shot of "a woman at keyboard" necessary to illustrate this news item by the Mail? I'd imagine it was a close call between "woman at keyboard" and "lesbian asylum seeker stealing identity to lower house prices".

...do they? "lets put it all online" seems like SUCH a good idea. 'course, none of this would have happened if everyone downloading had had a proper ID card.... : p

Why didn't they just blank out the signature section

a) when scanning the original

or b) when fetching the image for display

If its the signatures that are the problem, why not blank them out?

Shouldn't be too difficult to semi-automate, assuming the signatures appear in a defined place (usually the end) rather than being scattered randomly throughout the documents.

Of course, the long term answer is not to scan any future documents but to require them to be created online in the first place. That would make it much easier to create a "safe to distribute" version for online download, omitting such parts as might be considered a security risk.

Doesn't govt infosec policy require a risk assessment before systems are developed? Blind Freddy should have seen this one coming. Too much to hope that the moron concerned will be sacked for incompetance.

Land Titles are the Crown Jewels of developed economies. If the land title system ceases to be trustworthy then the economy of the affected country has had it. Welcome to the third world.