Identity Cards: yes or no?

[Papyrophile]

Gerard Darminin, French Home Secretary equivalent, has said that the UK is making itself a migrant target because we have no national officially issued ID card proving entitlement.

I, a very ordinary citizen, already have an NHS number issued at birth, and a National Insurance number sent to me at 16, neither of which has changed. I also have a passport number, due for renewal next year, a driver's license and a Government Gateway number for my occasional exchanges with officialdom.

Why would anyone who has nothing to hide from the authorities prefer not to hold an official proof of identity?

Why do you think you'd have to carry it at all times?

That was my question really. What good is it as a way of controlling immigrants if there's no requirement to carry it with you?

What's the point of having something to prove your identity if there's no requirement to prove it

Being required to carry it is the next logical step. And I guess the argument will be then "well, if you've got nothing to hide."

Honestly, if I had one, I'd just tuck it into my card wallet and produce it if i was asked for it, next to my driver's license and my boat operator competence card. I can't get het up on the subject, but I posed the original question because I wasn't exercised one way or the other, but I was interested to know how other people viewed the situation. The last time I looked at the voting there was a significant majority in favour. BUT I hoist in all the caveats and the costs, and the techie problems, and .... I still don't have a conclusion. So if you are looking for me to end it, I can't. But I do think it has been a useful vigorous discussion of the sort we shall need to have routinely to guide our politicians' thought process. So thanks to everyone who has contributed.

But if they can claim not to be able to identify a forged passport, how is a forged ID card, which will inevitably be easier to forge than a passport, any better?

It would be useful to prove your age when buying alcohol, your Identity and eligibility when seeking non- urgent medical treatment, applying for jobs, collecting parcels, voting etc.
They're just handy and smaller than passports
They' d need to be cheaper though!

I also had one in another country, I agree with it purely for the convenience 😂 they are so handy!

When I had one in a different country (Estonia) the photo quality was much better than what you get on a UK passport or driving license. I don’t know why or how but they were very hard to forge (not just UK teeneagers who want to use a fake ID to go out!)

If you wanted your ID card scheme to work, you need each card to have a unique reference number that links back to the big brother database that holds the actual ID data. The card is a mere proxy and probably the least important part of the scheme in all but cost.

How it would then work is person is stopped - by force of law - and required to produce their ID. For all the people on here who love the idea, this is your TikTok moment, as you whip it out (ooo errr missis) and show the nice person (who may or may not be a policeman - they could be anyone of a long list of "authorised persons"). That person does something "magic" (because 90% of people won't have a fucking clue) and checks that the card with it's number and (presumably) photo and biometrics match with what's on the database.

Obviously it's the database that holds all the real grunt like "are you a citizen ? Do you have a right to work ? Do you have a right to the NHS ? Are there any outstanding debts or criminal charges against you ? Are you supposed to be free ? Are you allowed to be here ?" and a whole host that will be thought up as we go along.

Assuming there is no glitch - you are free to go. Obviously where and when you were is recorded on the system.

I challenge anyone who has supported ID cards in this thread to give me an figure as a %age of the number of errors in the database . I'd say 0.001% is probably just about acceptable. That means for every 100,000 ID checks some poor sod is going to have a bad day. But that will be OK because the number of people stopped who won't have their ID card on them will exceed that number. Presumably they will be held until their ID is verified (maybe they will need to be escorted to get their card) and then charged. And we know from various lockdowns how much a fine for that sort of thing might be.

You might be able to challenge a fine if - say - your handbag was stolen that day. However I can't see there being too many get-outs. Otherwise you may as well not have the scheme.

Which leads us back to my personal position which is rather than spunking the £20 billion or so that it will eventually cost to have a shit ID card scheme. Hows about we find something more useful for it. I dunno ... schools, hospitals, social care, childcare ?

Have a driving licence, no passport. Would be happy to have ID card. Sensible idea.

To carry by law and at all times with the risk of mistakes ?

(I left out any risks of a database hack)

How much better is your life for all that, then ?

Quite.

Everyone going 'it sounds like a great idea' needs to think about how things work in practice and how this could be open to abuse.

Look at China and how citizens get citizen points from correct and incorrect behaviour.

This makes it harder to challenge authority.

Authority always has the potential to harm citizens. You don't give authority too much power otherwise it can abuse those systems and silence citizens.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Imagine you are someone with a low social credit score and you are wronged by someone with a high score. You go to court. Your low score is used against you to say you are not credible as a witness. So the high credit score person gets away with their crime. To give one example.

Identity control and monitoring is problematic.

Everyone going 'it sounds like a great idea' needs to think about how things work in practice and how this could be open to abuse.

You know they won't though.

Many years ago in one job, some smart arse FD had a smart arse brain wave. "Let's save energy and turn all the computers off when people go home - we'll save hundreds."

No one asked the IT department, obviously. I think they'd had enough of experts. However IT did question the idea.

Fast forward 6 months, and FD wanted to know why computer repairs had quadrupled (and they weren't cheap) and nobody was getting any work done before 9:30.

Of course the repeated power cycling was blowing up PSUs daily, and then the "everything on at 9am was killing the network as over one thousand machines tried to update and resynch".

Simple solutions for simple people. They never once managed to work out how much they had lost for the "saving" of a few hundred pounds.

It was a case study in idiocy. And it was a reminder of why the UK has a productivity problem.

The real solution would have been to have spent a few hundred pounds over the year ensuring the new kit was more modern and did power saving as standard. However that wasn't the FDs idea, so obviously not worth anything.

Well no.

I've seen far things a mile off far too many times, warned people got ridiculed and then had to bite my tongue with the 'i told you so'. And frequently so on MN.

People don't want to see things so they don't. Even when it's fucking obvious.

Because they would rather believe in the simple fix or that authority and power isn't abused.

I wish I were that naive and ostrichy. It'd make for a less stress free life!

I am looking at actual real places that have (no compulsory carry) ID cards right now, and it appears to work just fine. So I don't really need to imagine stuff.

Are they culturally the same as the UK?

Oh no cos they aren't the UK.

Funny.

They also don't achieve the things people in favour of them on this thread think they will either. Societies with compulsory ID cards still have irregular migration and people working illegally, for example. The employers will just be telling a different lie when caught and trying to avoid punishment.

People don't want to see things so they don't. Even when it's fucking obvious.

If your job depends on it, you'd be amazed on what people don't see.

The corollary is if your job depends on seeing it, then see it you will. Be it paedophilia, immigrants eating dogs, benefit fraud, or angels dancing to "fight the power" on the head of a pin.

"I'm a tobacconist. Who said I was a doctor ?"

"If your job depends on your not seeing it ..." I should have said,