system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do government forms ask me to fill out information they already have?

For example:

I'm applying for a government student loan and the form asks me to fill out my parents' tax information, which they give the government every year.

Seeing as the information gets checked against government records, wouldn't it just be more efficient and secure to use the information they already have?
gpt
The "government" is not one entity. It's a collection of entities that all have their own systems. And due to the slowness to change anything in the government mixed with the slowness of any large entity when it comes to technology, those systems do not always talk to each other. So rather than fix them, they rely on you to pass on that info. It's dumb.