I retired from the AF 20 years ago and the VA has declared me dead twice since then. They never attempted to confirm whether I was actually dead or not, they just stopped my disability. They never contacted my wife about benefits she would have been owed in the event of my death, either.
I went to the local VA office and showed them a picture ID and they said that it wasn’t sufficient. I had to write a notarized statement and provide 2 photo IDs which had to be submitted to the main office in St Petersburg. If they decided I wasn’t dead, I would have to wait at least 6 months for them to fix the error and reinstate my disability payments.
In the meantime, the VA decided to notify the AF of my death and they quit sending my AF Retirement. It took one phone call and 5 minutes for the AF Retiree center to fix the error.
WOW! They screw up the medical.
They screw up the financial.
Yet they get promoted, raises and bonuses, each year or more!
The technique they use to share information is intrinsically capable of creating archipelagos of conflicting information that self-validate and self-perpeptuate. If an incorrect record enters the system it's quite likely that it will never go away for good. Most software managers working on government contracts refuse to admit such a thing could happen, because it would lose the contract to someone who's willing to preserve the fiction.
BTW, it's futile to talk about alternatives, the laws of physics forbid the information ever becoming trustworthy to the degree claimed.