Identity Cards

[cactustwirly]

I'm pretty sure you can get an ID if you can't get a provisional driving licence.

 

[etr221]

Then it would be tough luck.

That is a vanishingly small part of the population. People in that scenario should simply apply for a passport and deal with the mild inconvenience of having to carry it on occasions when they need photo ID.

Mild inconvenience for a small % of the population doesn’t justify squandering billions of taxpayers’ money (because that’s no doubt what it will end up costing) on another white elephant ID card scheme.

I find that attitude totally unacceptable. I think the number of people without what what might be required as id is much larger than anybody thinks. And that to a very large extent the problems of 'officialdom' are down assumptions live nice standard lives in standard ways - when all too often they don't.

Either identity cards are required by 'officialdom' to evidence identity and membership of the national community, in which case they should be available for free to everybody requiring one; or they are not, in which case it is for 'officialdom' to just accept somebody's declaration that they are who they are.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Then it would be tough luck.

That is a vanishingly small part of the population. People in that scenario should simply apply for a passport and deal with the mild inconvenience of having to carry it on occasions when they need photo ID.

Mild inconvenience for a small % of the population doesn’t justify squandering billions of taxpayers’ money (because that’s no doubt what it will end up costing) on another white elephant ID card scheme.

Or, as I said, non-driving driving licences at cost price. No cost to the taxpayer, easier for those people above.

 

[AlterEgo]

I've voted "no" for this - I work on the principle that any idea that further erodes our hard fought for freedoms deserves to be strangled at birth.

What kind of freedom does a voluntary identity card erode?

 

[transmanche]

What kind of freedom does a voluntary identity card erode?

I think the argument has been made that when people are unable to access a service without having a 'voluntary' ID card, then carrying one becomes a de facto requirement.

 

[DavidGrain]

Last year I crossed the Øresund Bridge from Denmark to Sweden twice. I have done this journey regularly since 2003 and there has never been any check until last year. The first time the train stopped at Hillie station for a border check. Actually the Border Police did not come into my carriage, perhaps because they did not think there would be any illegals traveling first class. The second time I was standing on a crowded commuter train and everyone was checked. I was the only one around me in that carriage who had to produce a passport. All the others had ID cards.This was a bit of a fiddle to get it out of my pocket and to open it but others were having to take their ID cards out of wallets so I don't think it made any difference.

Here in the UK i have often had a card clash between my West Midlands bus pass and my Oyster card on the Underground. I learned very quickly to keep them in separate wallets but I am still inclined to reach into my pocket and one handed slap it on the yellow pad without looking at it as I usually have a suitcase or other bag in the other hand.

 

[Lucan]

I think the argument has been made that when people are unable to access a service without having a 'voluntary' ID card, then carrying one becomes a de facto requirement.

Why? Sure, you would need to take it with you when opening a bank account and or maybe hiring a car, but you need to carry papers with you to do those things at present. Not otherwise.

If we reached a state when the police were likely to demand and expect identity at the drop of a hat, they could do that without ID cards, because [according to the anti-ID-card people] we all (almost all) carry our driving licences around, and they act like ID cards anyway.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Might the same thing be achieved (for less cost) by simply subsidising the cost of passports?

It might, but the cost of passports has been set so high as a revenue stream for the government. I cannot see a government letting go of that lightly.

And it'll be the same issue with ID cards. The cost will gradually creep up and up. And a "voluntary" card will end up being de facto compulsory, you won't be able to open a bank account, get a job, rent a house or get medical treatment without one.

It raises an interesting question of how I prove my own citizenship beyond any doubt.

If you're born in the UK to British parents, you're fine. Easy enough to prove.

Me? I was born in Australia to British parents, and enjoy dual nationality as a result. I'm actually only British by descent. If my kid is born outside of the UK, they might not be British.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Sure, you would need to take it with you when opening a bank account and or maybe hiring a car, but you need to carry papers with you to do those things at present.

You don't, however, need a Government sanctioned piece of paper to prove your identity.

ID cards will, if they're introduced, become the *only* acceptable ID verification. And, as Windrusg has just shown us, if the Government don't want to treat you as British then you'll not get one.

 

[LAX54]

The UK is only one of three European Countries that does not have an ID card, the others are Eire and Denmark.

 

[Lucan]

Why? Sure, you would need to take it with you when opening a bank account and or maybe hiring a car,.

You don't, however, need a Government sanctioned piece of paper to prove your identity.

Yes I do. They want to see my driving licence and/or my passport.

ID cards will, if they're introduced, become the *only* acceptable ID verification. And, as Windrusg has just shown us, if the Government don't want to treat you as British then you'll not get one.

I don't have a problem with that.

 

[GB]

Voluntary ID cards are already available for those that want ID so not really sure what the issues are and I don’t see why they should be compulsory.

If I want to pop down the shops or take a stroll in the park then I should be able to do it without the need for any ID or any justification for my being there. I should also be able to do these types of things without fear of some kind of prosecution, persecution or any other potential issues.

 

[Daz28]

The trick is to make it voluntary but then make it so useful that nobody would not want to have one.

A universal card that can be used as The ID key to being able to vote, prove your national insurance to a new employer, residency status when renting a property, driving licence, tax, library card, NHS entitlement etc. Make it an ITSO style smart card where limited amounts of data can be opened up (with protections) so it can be used to access the gym and other leisure facilities, be your ID pass to access your employers premises, it could even be your pass for travel on trains and buses.

The card itself need only contain basic information, a unique identifier number, name, DOB, a digital photo and perhaps some biometric data such as fingerprint and perhaps a PIN. Everything else would be contained on local systems unique to each service, all referenced by the unique identity number.

Data protection is then less of an issue. The card identifies who you are, it is an authentication card. But authorising is still decentralised, as each system or service you authenticate with will hold whatever personal information is relevant to that service. The library attendant wouldn’t know your medical details and the taxman wouldn’t know about your driving record.

 

[gazthomas]

I must admit, in my work I often visit clients who ask me to confirm my identity. Working for a company is not enough.

As a result I have to provide my driving licence and/or passport to prove this.

But what if I had neither? It seems people who don't drive or leave the company are penalised.

So maybe it is time for a universal identity card, despite our inhibitions as a nation.

 

[gazthomas]

The UK is only one of three European Countries that does not have an ID card, the others are Eire and Denmark.

Very similar countries in terms of outlook

 

[DarloRich]

I assume you travel abroad (as I'm aware you don't drive). What if you didn't?

I would still buy a passport. You never know when you might need one

Mild inconvenience for a small % of the population doesn’t justify squandering billions of taxpayers’ money (because that’s no doubt what it will end up costing) on another white elephant ID card scheme.

personally i worry more about the construction of the database, the management of that data and the costs levied by some outsourcer than i do about the government collecting the data!

 

[Mag_seven]

What kind of freedom does a voluntary identity card erode?

The fear that it will become compulsory to carry one thereby destroying the freedom I have at the moment to walk the streets without one.

 

[AlterEgo]

The fear that it will become compulsory to carry one thereby destroying the freedom I have at the moment to walk the streets without one.

I don’t really see how that’s a freedom if I’m honest.

 

[transmanche]

I think the argument has been made that when people are unable to access a service without having a 'voluntary' ID card, then carrying one becomes a de facto requirement.

Why? Sure, you would need to take it with you when opening a bank account and or maybe hiring a car, but you need to carry papers with you to do those things at present. Not otherwise.

I believe the issue is when non-state organisations require you to have a National ID card to access their services. For example, if the proof-of-age required for a Senior Railcard was changed to be a Passport or National ID card only - then the Voluntary ID card becomes a de facto requirement if lots of organisations take a similar stance.

In fact, Railcards are an example where owning a passport or driving licence have become a de facto requirement. I'm sure you could buy one in the past with a Birth Certificate or Pension Book as proof-of-age. Nowadays (unless you're buying via telesales) you need a passport or UK driving licence.

 

[Busaholic]

I've always been against a compulsory ID card, and nothing I've heard or read recently has done anything to alter my view: in fact, I'm probably more against it than ever.
Purely because it's something I'm bemusedly going through in relation to my own identity, having been born in London to British parents a matter of 70 years and a few days ago, I'll cite my recent experience. I've had driving licences since 1967, and as I haven't moved house in nearly thirty years I've never had need of a photo driving licence. However, on reaching age 70 I have had to re-apply for a licence, with the necessary photographic 'identity'. My fifty-odd years of being licensed without anyone querying whether I was that person named on the licence counts for nothing, of course, nor the fact that the DVLA were sending me the necessary forms to the address they've had on file for thirty years, plus all the vehicle ownership, car tax and insurance details they've got on me too.
So I get the form to fill in about three months before my 70th birthday, and I take a cursory look at it. The health questions are easy to answer and should pose no barriers to my obtaining a new licence, so I go to the rest of the form, most of which is concerned with the national obsession of the moment, namely identity. Sending my old licence back is required, but not as a means of identity, that would be way too simple. A 'valid' British passport, it is made clear, is really the only form of identity that is beyond peradventure acceptable, and you don't even have to send your passport - just quote the details, and Bob's your uncle (or so you hope). Oh, blow, my last passport (which I never used) has run out, or so I thought, so I'll have to go through other hurdles. I leave it another month or so, then I start looking for my driving licence, whereupon I discover my passport and, lo and behold. it still has about a month left on it, not enough to use it for overseas travel, but surely enough to establish my identity. So I fill the form in, get my up-to-date photos, thinking how my appearance has deteriorated in the ten or so years since that passport photo, and sit back and wait for my new licence. and wait.. and wait. Eventually, just before my birthday and about three weeks after the passport's expiry date, I get my form back with a covering letter saying the passport number is not 'valid' i.e. it's expired. I'm expecting this, by this time, but it doesn't stop me uttering a few oaths in the general direction of the DVLA. So I go through the motions, an acquaintance signing their life away that I am Busaholic (or something) and providing their own photocard driving licence identity for checking: I still await the new licence or, alternatively, the latest in the saga. I don't believe for one minute that any of this 'proves' my identity, so why would I be convinced by an identity card?

 

[Bromley boy]

And that to a very large extent the problems of 'officialdom' are down assumptions live nice standard lives in standard ways - when all too often they don't.

Not all do but most do and officialdom have to make sensible decisions on that basis. An enormously expensive ID card scheme might be considered to be an answer to a question no one (or, more accurately, not enough people to justify the expense ) is asking.

Either identity cards are required by 'officialdom' to evidence identity and membership of the national community, in which case they should be available for free to everybody requiring one; or they are not, in which case it is for 'officialdom' to just accept somebody's declaration that they are who they are.

That might be your opinion of how things should be but it certainly isn’t the way things actually are in the UK at the moment. As I understand it there are no firm plans to change the status quo. That’s fine with, and I’m sure it is for most people.

I’m afraid people need to work with the system to avoid falling through the cracks rather than expecting it to be changed (at considerable expense) to suit them.

ID cards will, if they're introduced, become the *only* acceptable ID verification. And, as Windrusg has just shown us, if the Government don't want to treat you as British then you'll not get one.

That’s a concern I share.

(Although, I must admit, I struggle to understand why someone supposedly living here for 40 years + can’t provide evidence of tax/NI etc. on U.K. earnings, or at least some documentary evidence of their residency in this country over several decades).

I don’t really see how that’s a freedom if I’m honest.

Even if a case can be made for a voluntary ID scheme, an express requirement to carry ID at all times smacks slightly of totalitarianism and a police state.

We are used to a generally permissive system of freedoms in the U.K. (where we can largely do what we want so long as it is not expressly forbidden). A requirement to carry ID smacks to me more of a system where everything is forbidden other than that which is expressly permitted.

Not every state requiring ID is totalitarianist but (without having looked into the matter) I bet most of the countries where you are required to carry ID on you at all times aren’t societies we would want to emulate in the U.K.

 

[Bromley boy]

personally i worry more about the construction of the database, the management of that data and the costs levied by some outsourcer than i do about the government collecting the data!

Probably true but I’m of the view that I don’t really want any more info about me on databases than is already out there.

For the same reasons I didnt complete the census form when it came round a few years back. Not because I have anything to hide but because I don’t want to have to tell “the man” about my politics, earnings, sexuality etc.

 

[NSEFAN]

I would support the introduction of a non-mandatory-to-carry ID card, used to combine functionality of passports, driving licences and other such official functions. It could even be used to confirm eligibility for benefits or NHS treatment, which I think would calm concerns about benefit tourism.

I quite like the Belgian system where the card is electronic, so you can even use it as part of online identity checking for management of these services, using a provided USB reader. By making a card like this which is convenient, I think most people would gladly have it.

 

[DarloRich]

For the same reasons I didnt complete the census form when it came round a few years back. Not because I have anything to hide but because I don’t want to have to tell “the man” about my politics, earnings, sexuality etc.

the census is just a front. They actually download that data directly from the chip in your brain

 

[Bromley boy]

the census is just a front. They actually download that data directly from the chip in your brain

No chance. They’d have to get through my tin foil hat for that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

(Although, I must admit, I struggle to understand why someone supposedly living here for 40 years + can’t provide evidence of tax/NI etc. on U.K. earnings, or at least some documentary evidence of their residency in this country over several decades).

The problem is that the Home Office required documents from every single year to prove they'd been there. Any gaps and the answer was no. People have some documents but they didn't have everything, and certainly not for 40 years.

I know I don't have my P45s from every single year I've ever been working.

For the same reasons I didnt complete the census form when it came round a few years back. Not because I have anything to hide but because I don’t want to have to tell “the man” about my politics, earnings, sexuality etc.

Now I filled it in, but wrote a load of cr@p on it. I'd rather mess up The Man's statistics.

It could even be used to confirm eligibility for benefits or NHS treatment, which I think would calm concerns about benefit tourism.

As I've said above, my precise worry is that an official ID card will be used for precisely this purpose. The DWP already struggle enough as it is with anyone who doesn't fit into their neat little boxes- "computer says no" when it's not the computer's decision- and this would just make it worse.

I don't trust the Home Office to be reasonable in issuing these cards, and I don't trust other government agencies to simply piggyback on the back of them.

 

[Kite159]

Sometimes at work I have to step up to covering the security administrator role, and having a national Identity Card would be of benefit for those employees coming into work who don't have passports or driving licenses as the rules set by the MOD for identity is one piece of photo ID and one piece of ID with the current address on, and the hardest part is normally getting photo ID.

-----

Don't you mean a P60 @Arctic Troll (rather than a P45)?

 

[NSEFAN]

As I've said above, my precise worry is that an official ID card will be used for precisely this purpose. The DWP already struggle enough as it is with anyone who doesn't fit into their neat little boxes- "computer says no" when it's not the computer's decision- and this would just make it worse.

I don't trust the Home Office to be reasonable in issuing these cards, and I don't trust other government agencies to simply piggyback on the back of them.

This is more of a practical impmentation issue, and I must say I share your cynicism. Indeed the Belgian chap who explained their system to me had trouble understanding the sheer amount of distrust in the UK government!

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is more of a practical impmentation issue, and I must say I share your cynicism. Indeed the Belgian chap who explained their system to me had trouble understanding the sheer amount of distrust in the UK government!

Not just that, but how bad bits of the Civil Service are at talking to one another. ATOC is a land of peace and harmony in comparison. There's a reason why, say, buses and trains are better integrated today under private operators with more local oversight than when it was BR and the NBC - large Civil Service operations like to deal with their own empire and ignore anything else.

 

[whhistle]

There should be three types of "acceptable" identification:
1) Passport
2) Driving Licence
3) ID Card

You must have at least one of those when you turn 16 (?) and if unable to produce it immediately, have 7 days in which to do so at a local police station.

If you have one, there's no need for the others, but if you have more than one, that's great.
Price for the ID card should be set in the middle between the Driving Licence and Passport OR make the passport / driving licence / id card all cost the same.

Even if a case can be made for a voluntary ID scheme, an express requirement to carry ID at all times smacks slightly of totalitarianism and a police state.

I see why people don't want this but at the same time, is it really that much hassle?
Why are people so against being able to prove who they are?

It's like the other day, a guy told me he "didn't do contactless". I told him he had no choice. His card has it, whether he likes it or not. It's like saying you don't want to use chip and pin. How many people have been financially worse off by having their card skimmed? Not any that I can recall, although I appreciate it happens.

For the same reasons I didnt complete the census form when it came round a few years back. Not because I have anything to hide but because I don’t want to have to tell “the man” about my politics, earnings, sexuality etc.

For statistics though?

I watched a TV Programme called "back in time for... (Dinner / Tea / The Weekend)" and found it interesting to see how much people spent on food in years gone by.

Remember, you're just one of millions of people. No data inputter is going to be bothered about YOU specifically. I'd suggest only if you're being investigated by an authority do they really care about a specific person.

Another great example is mobile phones.
Both Google and Apple retreive data about your location from your phone to create information on traffic conditions and thus potentially warn you / redirect you if using a maps app. It woudn't work half as well if everyone turned their location/data completely off.
Does Google care about YOU? No. They just want the collective data.