How did people in the past prevent identity theft? I mean before the photos and new secure technology on identity documents were available?
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Identity verification back in the day mostly relied on word of mouth, essentially a local notable person(often a local priest as they knew everybody) could vouch for who you were and if they didn’t know you personally they would likely know either your family, or your neighbors, etc who could also vouch for you. The modern notary public system is essentially the same thing. It still was possible to forge a letter of introduction from some important person(assuming you could read/write and reproduce whatever seal or signature they used) in a far off place and essentially get a new identity using that, but the moment you got in trouble and someone investigated it you would be found out.
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