They determined each individual's position within the administrational matrix and the deeper this matrix reached into the social fabric, the more important the informational identity became. In places where the administrational matrix is all dominant at borders, in prisons or hospitals, for example the record-based identity can override the physical identity, should there be an apparent discrepancy between the two. Just try crossing borders without a valid passport. The material nature of analog records imposed strict characteristics on the information system in which they were kept, and on the social institutions which were built around these systems. The larger the record systems, the more distinctly they are shaped by their material nature.
All information has to be entered manually into the system.
The more detailed the records are, the more people have to be employed to gather and process the necessary information. The more people, however, are gathering information, the more difficult it becomes it handle the endless flood of paper records. Even what was arguably one of the most advanced and best staffed record systems, the East German secret police, was ultimately unable to effectively carry out its ambitious program of establishing a detailed informational identity for everyone. Internal breakdown because of information overload threatened to diminish its vicious efficiency. Paper-based systems and the informational identities created in them tend not only to be centralized and very work intensive, but they also tend to be static.