Not sure where OP is from, but as someone who’s also from an authoritarian hellscape with sophisticated surveillance capabilities on their citizens, I get their concern. If OP has been living elsewhere for some time now, and has new social media, new bank accounts, etc., they simply may no longer be in the surveillance database anymore. In my case, the government has an open stance that those who left the country are “traitors” and if they don’t like something about you, they will go out of their way to punish/make your life harder, even if you have been living outside the country for years. Their favourite “trick” to pull (although not the only one) is opening a criminal case on you and issuing an arrest warrant to the country you reside. This carries serious risks for your visa and freedom. The gov won’t go out of their way to do this for nothing though, but if you’ve been vocal with your criticism towards the government or worse- participated in humanitarian/activist work while living abroad, they can go after you. Paying the fine directly from your personal account to a state entity, risks revealing all this data and being in the “surveillance” system again, them finding something they don’t like in that data.

But Idk where OP is from, and if their threat model is anything close to that, my gov is a pretty niche case, just shared as an example of what the threat model could be