Will the paper trail ever go away?

[SSOWorld]

One would think that the world would go 100% computer/online/cloud whatever for record keeping and what-not right?

My view?  No (no I don't need Tarder Sauce - a.k.a. Grumpy Cat to show you that ).  There are many industries and professions that can attest to that.

1). Accounting - yes you still need itemized receipts - plus your taxes...
2). Education - even computer science classes use paper and pencil for exams.
3). Even traffic cops give you a paper ticket - no they can't email it

who else? you name it.

Thoughts?

[DaBigE]

-Contracts, at least those with units of government still require a handwritten signature by all parties involved
-Final plan sets, at least in Wisconsin, the PE must stamp the title sheet and sign on or near said stamp

[Duke87]

All three of the things mentioned could in theory be done electronically. Some stores already give you the option of having your receipt emailed to you. Taking an exam on a computer is 1980s technology. Traffic violations are already often stored digitally on the back end, it would be possible to design a front end system for that as well.

The reason for continuing to require paper in a lot of these cases is because allowing it to be done digitally makes it a lot easier to forge the document, and for some important things that ease of forgery may be unacceptable.

With regards to giving out your email address you also then have the problem that you enable the store to send you spam as well as your receipt.

Nonetheless, while there are certainly things which won't go paperless in the near future, never say never. Issues with securing, validating, and transmitting this information are challenges, but not things that make it impossible.

[adventurernumber1]

Syllabuses at school 

But basically, anything that would require a signature. Contracts, forms, syllabuses, you name it.

[NE2]

Voting should require a paper trail. Thanks, Repub-a-dub-dubs!

[Laura]

Syllabuses at school 

But basically, anything that would require a signature. Contracts, forms, syllabuses, you name it.

Ha! I only received digital copies of mine this semester. The professors pulled them up on the computer (our rooms have wall sized flat screen monitors) and went through them that way.


iPhone

[Scott5114]

It's kind of funny how much paper is used at my workplace, which is a casino:

When you cash out of a machine, it prints a ticket out with a barcode. This barcode is just a lookup number to a database with all of the tickets in it. When you redeem the ticket somewhere it marks it as redeemed so it can't be paid out twice. This makes sense to be done on paper because, while EFT to and from the player card system is possible, not everyone is willing to get a card. The ticket acts as an analogue to cash.

Where it gets screwy is jackpots. A slot attendant creates a record of the jackpot in the accounting system–so far so good, all electronic. Then the attendant fills out a form, on paper, by hand, with the patron's name, social security number, etc. This is taken to an attendant station that generates a paper copy of the accounting system record, in carbon-copy triplicate, which is physically signed by three or four employees (depending on how large the payout is). An IRS form W-2G and W-9 are created, signed by the patron, scanned, and destroyed. The cashier retains a copy of the triplicate form, which is the only record that a particular cashier paid a particular jackpot.

At end of shift the cashier gets a total of all tickets redeemed by them from a paper-printout report, then manually totals all of the jackpot triplicate forms with an adding machine.  They also calculate all chips redeemed and keno tickets paid and sold, and all of these are filled in on a form which closely resembles a D&D character sheet in terms of layout and complexity and clearly originated on Microsoft Excel, but is filled out by hand, on paper. The whole shebang is then added up and subtracted from the opening drawer impressment to get a result that should equal the balance of the cashier's bank–all done on an adding machine and the totals duly recorded on the form, which is then signed twice.

There's little reason the system couldn't associate the jackpot payouts with the cashier login, add up all the ticket and jackpot payouts, grab the keno balance from the keno system, and fill out the end-of-shift form and electronically submit it to accounting. All that would have to be done manually is chips. But the system isn't designed to do that, and the exist system works well enough, so why fuss with making the computers do all the work that the humans are doing?

[roadman65]

When I worked at a commercial laundry they used paperwork to let them know how much product we handled each two hours.  If we reached, lets say, the quota that they had for us within the two hour period, we were at 100 percent production.  If we went over the percentage got higher and if we dropped below it the percentage, of course, went below one hundred.

That was their way for the big boys on top in corporate to make sure that no one was gold bricking.

At my present job, paperwork is a must as we handle charge cards along with cash.  We still need the paper for the owner to sign on when using debit or credit because its a restaurant.

[jeffandnicole]

There's probably nothing that can't be done electronically. 

Some of it may be limited as to various state laws regarding actual vs. electronic signatures. 

Some may depend on the various ages of people involved...overall, if the majority of people with officer positions are younger, they will have an easier time converting their companies' paperwork to electronic formats. 

Over time you will see less and less done on paper.  But sometimes, it's hard to completely transfer over to an electronic age. The IRS requires Tax Preparation firms to submit the 1040s and other various tax forms via electronic format.  But I have to physically sign a piece of paper stating I authorize them to do that.

My office uses way too much paper.  There's ways to eliminate it, but when the bosses are still living in the dinosaur age, it's a struggle.  I've been able to assist in eliminating *some* paper, but I've learned to take baby steps when doing so.

[PHLBOS]

Legal Documents.

[Brandon]

There's probably nothing that can't be done electronically. 

Wanna bet?

Illinois Department of Public Health requires original signatures on all plans and documents with respect to asbestos removal to ensure no one is using fake documents.

A professional engineer seal must be on paper, and must be original for most plans and documents which require them.

Paper, contrary to what some in Silicon Valley tell us, will always be with us.

[1995hoo]

Legal Documents.

Depends on what they are. The federal courts use electronic filing for many documents. The attorney's username and password are deemed to constitute an "electronic signature." The signature block at the end of a motion or brief will either have just "/s/" or the longer "/s/ [Name of attorney]" on the signature line, depending on which format the local rules require.

It's all a case of what local laws and rules require. Notarizations, for example, traditionally required a raised seal, but many jurisdictions have done away with that in favor of a stamp. My wife is a notary in two jurisdictions and both now make the raised seal optional but require a stamp that will be legible when scanned or photocopied (regardless of whether a raised seal is used). Of course, for federal purposes the notarization is generally no longer required because of 28 USC 1746. Some states have enacted similar statutes.

Regarding school exams, I took several law school exams using a laptop. Some professors gave open-book exams, so they had no issues with allowing laptops. Other professors who gave closed-book exams required the use of "virtual bluebook" software; I think it was called "Examinator." It essentially locked you out of access to anything on your PC other than that particular application while you were running it, and it even suppressed the display of your Windows wallpaper to avoid the possibility of a sneaky student making a "cheat-sheet wallpaper."

When I took the Virginia bar exam, the examiners allowed typewriters (thankfully, in a SEPARATE ROOM from the rest of us!!!!!) but did not allow computers. I have no idea what the current procedure is. The bigger thing I recall is that we had to wear traditional business attire (suit and tie for men) to "promote decorum" but were asked to wear rubber-soled shoes (sneakers were OK) so as to minimize the noise of shoe soles on the tile floors. "Promote decorum" my arse. Did they think if we dressed casually we'd be shooting spitballs during the exam?

[PHLBOS]

Legal Documents.

Depends on what they are. The federal courts use electronic filing for many documents. The attorney's username and password are deemed to constitute an "electronic signature." The signature block at the end of a motion or brief will either have just "/s/" or the longer "/s/ [Name of attorney]" on the signature line, depending on which format the local rules require.

While such may be the case, I can't imagine for one minute that a printed, hard-copy copy of said-documents aren't kept on-hand just in case the electronic storage gets hacked or the server has a meltdown.  Especially given the subject nature of those documents (i.e. evidence).

[vdeane]

A lot of the resistance to moving to electronics is older people who are used to paper, organizations not wanting to spend money on upgrades, or businesses proving themselves incapable of creating secure devices because that would interfere with the ability to add bells and whistles that make them look "cool".

Let's take voting for example.  There is no reason a voting machine can't be made secure... but it would require several design/development changes from what we have now.  First, the firmware should be on a separate chip that cannot be written to for any reason; firmware updates would require replacing the chip.  Further, both the chip the memory for storing vote counts (where each vote should be read-only upon being cast) should be in a locked compartment within the machine.  Finally, the machine would not allow any form of user input beyond casting ballots.  Votes would be counted by inserting a card into the machine, after which it would either display the totals, or send the results to a centralized device via a custom-built network protocol that allows the machines to send the counts while receiving no incoming network packets of any kind (not even an IP address).  The counting machine would be similarly secured to only receive counts from genuine voting machines and display the totals.  Additionally, the software and hardware would undergo rigorous review and security audits from a non-partisan organization before being deployed.

[NE2]

Let's take voting for example.  There is no reason a voting machine can't be made secure... but it would require several design/development changes from what we have now.  First, the firmware should be on a separate chip that cannot be written to for any reason; firmware updates would require replacing the chip.  Further, both the chip the memory for storing vote counts (where each vote should be read-only upon being cast) should be in a locked compartment within the machine.  Finally, the machine would not allow any form of user input beyond casting ballots.  Votes would be counted by inserting a card into the machine, after which it would either display the totals, or send the results to a centralized device via a custom-built network protocol that allows the machines to send the counts while receiving no incoming network packets of any kind (not even an IP address).  The counting machine would be similarly secured to only receive counts from genuine voting machines and display the totals.  Additionally, the software and hardware would undergo rigorous review and security audits from a non-partisan organization before being deployed.

There's still a single point of failure. With paper ballots, you can always go in after the fact and do a recount from the start. Destroying paper is likely enough to leave some sort of physical trace to make the assclowns think twice. With a computer, it may be difficult to cock up the vote, but it's still possible and would be much more likely to leave no trace.

[jeffandnicole]

There's probably nothing that can't be done electronically. 

Wanna bet?

Illinois Department of Public Health requires original signatures on all plans and documents with respect to asbestos removal to ensure no one is using fake documents.

A professional engineer seal must be on paper, and must be original for most plans and documents which require them.

Paper, contrary to what some in Silicon Valley tell us, will always be with us.

Like I said, this is all required because it's probably the law. Laws can be changed. Some states have already moved in this direction regarding officials seals and such.

There's still a single point of failure. With paper ballots, you can always go in after the fact and do a recount from the start. Destroying paper is likely enough to leave some sort of physical trace to make the assclowns think twice. With a computer, it may be difficult to cock up the vote, but it's still possible and would be much more likely to leave no trace.

A fire could destroy the ballots. Numerous recounts can and do come up with different totals each time. Get a few people together, and ballots can suddenly go missing or not get counted. There's several ways paper ballots can be compromised.

[NE2]

A fire could destroy the ballots. Numerous recounts can and do come up with different totals each time. Get a few people together, and ballots can suddenly go missing or not get counted. There's several ways paper ballots can be compromised.

In all those cases, you know something's wrong, and can hold a redo election if necessary. Electronic records can be changed without any traces (even if it's not as simple as just editing a file).

Some states have already moved in this direction regarding officials seals and such.

You could even call it a baby club of electronic seals.

[Roadrunner75]

Traffic violations are already often stored digitally on the back end, it would be possible to design a front end system for that as well.

I believe the NJ State Police are now printing tickets directly in their cars (a receipt of sorts), rather than the old hand completed tickets.  Not paperless, but getting closer.

[Brandon]

There's still a single point of failure. With paper ballots, you can always go in after the fact and do a recount from the start. Destroying paper is likely enough to leave some sort of physical trace to make the assclowns think twice. With a computer, it may be difficult to cock up the vote, but it's still possible and would be much more likely to leave no trace.

A fire could destroy the ballots. Numerous recounts can and do come up with different totals each time. Get a few people together, and ballots can suddenly go missing or not get counted. There's several ways paper ballots can be compromised.

Of course, even paper ballots get tampered with in Cook County, Illinois.

[NE2]

Brandon misses the point. Tampering with paper ballots can be detected, even if the originals cannot be restored.

[Brandon]

Brandon misses the point. Tampering with paper ballots can be detected, even if the originals cannot be restored.

Well, they went to paper ballots after the voting machines had their wheels tampered with.  Even then, in the last Cook County board election, boxes of ballots from NW Cook were found to be open upon reaching the Loop after they were sealed at their precincts.

SPUI, you're dealing with professionals here, not the amateurs you have in Florida.

[realjd]

Anyone with a personal PKI cert (IdenTrust, DoD CAC, etc.) can easily sign documents electronically using Acrobat. We do it all the time at work. There's no reason something like that couldn't be used for the type of engineering drawings that legally require a signature/seal.

[Pete from Boston]

Legal Documents.

It's all a case of what local laws and rules require. Notarizations, for example, traditionally required a raised seal, but many jurisdictions have done away with that in favor of a stamp. My wife is a notary in two jurisdictions and both now make the raised seal optional but require a stamp that will be legible when scanned or photocopied (regardless of whether a raised seal is used). Of course, for federal purposes the notarization is generally no longer required because of 28 USC 1746. Some states have enacted similar statutes.

As the executor of a couple of estates, my letters testamentary required an affixed seal, not just a raised one.  I realize there are necessarily lots of obstacles to messing with estates, because we've all heard stories of deviousness in their execution, but this felt at least a little like an excuse for the county to charge me a few bucks every time I needed original identification. 

[jeffandnicole]

Paper ballots can be tampered with as well.

Let's say there's 6 different offices up for grabs in an election.  Voter takes his ballot, votes on 2 of them, and ignores the rest (happens all the time: rarely do the total votes add up to the same for all potential offices).  Someone can later take that ballot and "vote" for someone for those other offices. Ballot looks legit, and the actual voter has no proof he did or did not vote for all 6 offices.

[NE2]

Paper ballots can be tampered with as well.

Let's say there's 6 different offices up for grabs in an election.  Voter takes his ballot, votes on 2 of them, and ignores the rest (happens all the time: rarely do the total votes add up to the same for all potential offices).  Someone can later take that ballot and "vote" for someone for those other offices. Ballot looks legit, and the actual voter has no proof he did or did not vote for all 6 offices.

Yes, undetectable tampering can happen with paper ballots, but even in that case, if there's a strong suspicion that one of the workers went and cocked up the ballots, it may even be possible to detect due to pens not being perfectly equal, filling-in patterns, or something. At the very least, a landslide for a downballot candidate that is only found on a recount (since they'd have to be filled in after the polling-place scanning) would be cause to declare the results invalid and redo the voting with more controls in place.

Now picture the same thing happening with electronic voting. How many checks are not available because of the lack of paper trail?