National ID Cards

[Chakhakhan77]

Do you believe the government will bring them in? Keep seeing reports of this, freedom of speech slowly being taken away. Lots of videos of big crowds in city centres protesting about immigration. Are these AI videos? Are people/media exaggerating on the number of boats bringing people in? I don't know what is real anymore!

Honestly - if the UK decided it should know exactly who is in the country, their status and where they live, they would save the cost of implementing ID cards many times over. The council / police do spot checks on business premises here also and often find people with no ID / underage etc.

I’m not doi mg anything remotely shady in my life so would have no issue with it? Would you have to pay for them though? I already pay £££ for my passport and driving licence!

I think they are useful. So many lose their passports when used for ID purposes.
i care for someone who has no passport and cannot have a Driver’s licence due to disability. Having one would be a great help for him.

And yet, much poorer countries, like the ex communist block seem to afford it. Funny that.

The only people who did well out of the last attempt were the management consultants pocketing millions for failure. Same as the attempt at creating a central NHS computer system.

I have no particular objection to an ID card, but absolutely no confidence in any government to actually implement it.

The police/ government can find out where everyone is at any time if they want to through mobile phone use so any concerns about “freedom” are long gone.

I think they're a good idea. My ds1 doesn't have either a driving licence or passport. He has a citizen card from when he was about 16, he's now 34 so doesn't look much like his photo. It does make life awkward sometimes.
I have a friend whose son in law wouldn't have the covid jabs because he thought they had trackers (idiot springs to mind) his family used to laugh at him because he was practically glued to his iPhone. They wanted to go to Spain and his wife told him she would be going with the kids with or without him, he got the jabs eventually.

Why not get the Passport Office to issue them? They already have the systems to do it, rolll it out over 10 years and throw in a free passport/driving licence?

Well, looking at the polls, we’re in line to get an authoritarian, far-right govt at the next election. And therefore for the foreseeable after that.

At which point I would very much want to be doing “something shady”.

But as I say, mobile phones have long rendered us completely visible at all times. Along with CCTV etc.

It’s going to be very hard to organise the resistance if needed in the near future!

It all totally depends on who gets hold of them. Once they're in place they're a tool for every future government, be them Labour, Torybour (Blair-esque perversion of the party's original values), Conservative, Green, or Reform, or any future party.

I don't like to accelerate totalitarianism, which is where we are going globally. Look at the USA. Supreme leader incoming.

I agree! The first thirty minutes of every arrest you see on those traffic cop programmes is filled with the policeman trying to work out who they have arrested! It’s ridiculous!

The main utility of id cards is that if you don’t have one, you are automatically marked out as someone of interest. So much more efficient! And if you are in the country legally you really don’t need to worry.

I lived in a country where ID cards are mandatory for many years. Apart from the police verifying my identity at the start of my stay, the only time I used it was to collect parcels at the post office, so mundane and not remotely Big Brother!

A tool to do what exactly? Know who you are and where you live? If you're above board they know that already. It does rather hinder those that aren't though, which is sort of the point.

Interesting discussion! Personally, I think ID cards could make some processes easier and reduce fraud, but I can see why some people worry about privacy and government control. Has anyone here had experience with them abroad?

The British doing ID cards will be a disaster for a multitude of reasons down to the way we are culturally programmed to be absolute fucking jobs worths, over complicate the system and then will outsource it to the lowest bidder who are shite at security thus ending in a massive complete and utter cluster fuck when it gets hacked.

Some people seem to make a big deal of it, but there are very few countries that don't have some sort of universal id, and it would make some things so much easier. Identifying people who should be and should not be in the country for one. But there are so many times you need proof of age or proof of identity for all sorts of things that having one document to cover it all would be very useful, rather than needing a passport, driving license, utility bills and whatever else.

that applies to no other country in the world 🙄

What exactly do you think any government would actually do with those ID cards? Like what’s the worst case scenario here?

if it helps i go on political demos all the time. If there's a demo within about 50kms from me, i'm at it. my ID card hasn't stopped me doing that.

For those asking about costs: in Germany it is about EUR 40 i think, and lasts for 10 years. And the beauty of that is it is a bit cheaper (but not much) than our passports, and we can go to all the schengen countries with it, so no need for a passport at all.

I just don’t get what the big deal is. Some conspiracy theory nutters think that it’s a bad thing we have them, and yet my city is stuffed with deliveroo drivers who have no English and no concept of the Highway Code. I very much doubt many of them will have a formal right to work.

And we all (if we are here legally at least) have a national insurance number and an NHS number already, also a birth record and most people register to vote. It's not like we are all anonymous.

I am fairly confident that in our very British way we'd want the all singing all dancing ID card and then outsource to someone who costs an absolute fortune in a way that another country wouldn't - because they've done all the infrastructure for it internally and not over complicated it.

It should be no more difficult than issuing people with bus passes

@Chakhakhan77

why does ID cards erode freedom of speech? Do you carry a driving licence? Do you have a passport? Bus pass? Bank cards? They are all a form of ID

lots of countries have ID cards, personally I would welcome one that could be a combined ID card and diving license, and who knows in the future a passport

edited to add NI numbers, hospital numbers they are all a form of ID that could all be held on one simple card

I really don’t see the issue

Considering you are using a device of some sort to post on the internet and watch crazy people fill your head with nonsense then yeah. What exactly do you think they will do with an id card that they can't already do with a passport, driving licence quick look at your browsing history etc ?

They don't issue numbercards anymore, both my boys just got a letter with the number.