Submitted on Friday 22nd March 2019
Rejected on Monday 8th April 2019
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: no-action (see below for details)
Replace petition email verification with postcard to prevent bogus signatures.
Government petitions validate signatories by checking for a valid UK postcode and requiring signatories to click a link in an email. Both of these are very easy to fake.
Anyone with moderate coding skills and free software could put together a system to generate bogus signatures in a few days.
The recent "Revoke Article 50" petition purports to have gained more than a million signatures per day and shows areas with 18% of the electorate signing. This is clearly not credible and brings the petition system into disrepute.
A postcard system would cost little to administer as the cards would be printed and posted in bulk and scanned automatically on their return.
I suggest return postage be paid by the signatory. The 58p cost would deter spurious responses and save taxpayers' money.
You can't sign this petition because it was rejected. But you can still comment on it here at Repetition.me!
The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
We can't accept your petition because it's not clear what you would like to happen. Using a postcard system would stop the petitions system being an e-petitions system and turn it in to a paper petitions system instead.
In any case, the Government Digital Service monitors petitions to check for fraudulent activity. They use a number of techniques, automated and manual, to identify and block signatures from bots, disposable email addresses or other sources that show signs of fraudulent activity. They also monitor signing patterns. For security reasons, we don’t tell people when their fraudulent activity has been unsuccessful.
We don’t comment in detail about the security measures, but all petitions are subject to checks as part of due diligence and any concerns investigated.
If you want the Government and Parliament e-petitions site to be closed you could sign this petition instead:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/251900
3.145.33.230 Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:38:26 +0000
