Identity Cards

[GusB]

In short it makes day to day transactions simpler as there's a single, easily recognisable, universal form of ID that places no financial burden on the citizen, and if you fail to carry it you've inconvenienced nobody except yourself.

I have mixed feelings about compulsory ID cards, but I think there should be some voluntary scheme whereby someone who doesn't drive and doesn't travel abroad can obtain some form of official identification for certain transactions which do require ID (eg opening a bank account, applying for a job etc.), and without costing the earth. I've never held a full passport (my one and only trip abroad was c1991 when a bit of cardboard with a glued-on photograph from the Post Office was acceptable for travel to certain countries), and my driving licence is still a paper one. When I last applied for a job it caused some issues, although eventually they accepted my birth certificate and various other documents. The requirement to provide either a passport or driving licence in order to gain employment is a considerable financial burden if you're skint.

Ironically, that job required that I held a personal licence for the sale of alcohol for which I was issued a paper certificate and photocard - the latter was not considered to be an acceptable form of ID for getting served in pubs and clubs as it didn't have the relevant PASS hologram!

 

[najaB]

Ironically, that job required that I held a personal licence for the sale of alcohol for which I was issued a paper certificate and photocard - the latter was not considered to be an acceptable form of ID for getting served in pubs and clubs as it didn't have the relevant PASS hologram!

Now that is irony.

 

[Meerkat]

I am totally against compulsory ID cards - that is a police state.
I do like the idea of non-driving licences.
I would like laws that restrict why ID can be asked for to prevent a slide to default need to carry.

We have hard fought for freedoms, such that we are told what we can’t do, not what we are allowed to do.
“Why not” is not IMO a valid argument. Why not have government CCTV in your bedroom - if you aren’t overly friendly with animals what have you got to hide?

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Digging this thread up as the topic's been raised again. I still think it makes sense for everyone to be issued an ID card at age 16 that contains, at the least, your name, photograph and date/place of birth along with a unique number. Authorised people/systems should then be able to look up the number and see if the data matches.

This can then be exchanged for a full driving licence photocard after you pass your test.

How does the 16 year old prove who they are in order to get their first ID?
Just turn up at one of half a dozen nationwide centres (at your own expense) and say 'I am John Smith, please take my photo and give me my ID '? Take along someone else's birth certificate and you have a nice fake ID for life.
Take along your parents? Could be any two adults. Some won't have both or even one parent.

It used to be that, on your sixteenth birthday or thereabouts, a card arrived in the post with your National Insurance number on it. Possession of that should be sufficient. If the government is prepared to simply send them out, it should be similarly prepared to accept it as proof of who you are when needed.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

In short it makes day to day transactions simpler as there's a single, easily recognisable, universal form of ID that places no financial burden on the citizen, and if you fail to carry it you've inconvenienced nobody except yourself.

If you want simpler transactions, just let people get on with their lives, unhindered by bureaucratic processes requiring bits of plastic with your photo on and associated bits of paper.

Established procedures already undertaken behind the scenes will be far more effective than stop and search style ID checks.

A terrorist who wants to get into the country (and out afterwards) will do so with impunity, regardless of any requirement to carry ID. Similarly a criminal. Russian tourists to Salisbury for example, the speedboat death bloke currently awaiting extradition back to the UK, all the gansters on the Costa del Crime.

There is a financial burden in obtaining, and presumably occasionally renewing, an ID document. Just as there is for getting a passport or a driving licence (beyond the cost of lessons and the test).

 

[najaB]

A terrorist who wants to get into the country (and out afterwards) will do so with impunity, regardless of any requirement to carry ID. Similarly a criminal. Russian tourists to Salisbury for example, the speedboat death bloke currently awaiting extradition back to the UK, all the gansters on the Costa del Crime.

ID cards aren't supposed to stop terrorists, so thanks for the straw man. They make things like opening a bank account simple and straightforward.

 

[najaB]

How does the 16 year old prove who they are in order to get their first ID?
Just turn up at one of half a dozen nationwide centres (at your own expense) and say 'I am John Smith, please take my photo and give me my ID '? Take along someone else's birth certificate and you have a nice fake ID for life.

Indeed, and no real ID. He's only inconveniencing himself.

No different than applying for a first passport with someone else's birth certificate.

 

[GB]

My previous opinion still stands. Any ID card scheme should be voluntary for those that wan't them and I do not agree that obtaining and carrying one should be mandatory.

Infact, as nearly everyone can apply for a provisional drivers license (even if they have no intention of driving) then I don't really see the need for a separate ID scheme unless its significantly cheaper to produce and buy.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

ID cards aren't supposed to stop terrorists, so thanks for the straw man. They make things like opening a bank account simple and straightforward.

Complete Twaddle.

Don't try and divert attention away from the weakness of your argument by throwing 'straw man' in.

An ID card scheme will help tackle the crime and serious issues facing the UK, particularly illegal working, immigration abuse, ID fraud, terrorism and organised crime."

David Blunkett, Home Secretary

<snip>in November 2003, a sceptical cabinet allowed Blunkett to "proceed by incremental steps to build a base for a compulsory national ID card scheme". Since then, the government has sought to exploit the aftermath of the Madrid bombings of March 2004 as an opportunity to accelerate the drive not only to introduce ID cards but to make them compulsory straight away.

Both excerpts from a Green Party briefing paper on the proposals at that time.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Indeed, and no real ID. He's only inconveniencing himself.

No different than applying for a first passport with someone else's birth certificate.

So why propose one then?
You said:

I still think it makes sense for everyone to be issued an ID card at age 16 that contains, at the least, your name, photograph and date/place of birth along with a unique number.

I replied:

How does the 16 year old prove who they are in order to get their first ID?

and

It used to be that, on your sixteenth birthday or thereabouts, a card arrived in the post with your National Insurance number on it.

So, we already have an NI card with all the necessary details on, other than a photograph. We also have, as discussed previously, NHS cards, issued to every adult.

Just how many layers of ID do you require before you accept that someone is who they say they are?

The issue is, ultimately, you simply cannot prove identity.

At some point you have to take things on trust - the person themselves applying, the person cross-signing the application, the person cross-signing the person cross-signing, and so on. It's not as though supposedly responsible people who are considered acceptable to cross-sign applications ever commit crimes, or 'serious errors of judgment' themselves is it? e.g. Members of Parliament, senior police officers. Heaven forbid we let any terrorists, or their very close supporters, stand for, and sit, in parliament!

I am quite sure that any dubious character who wants to get a fake passport (or national identity document) can already do so through a variety of means. Just as they can bring in chemical weapons, traditional weapons, laundered money, modern slaves, drugs etc.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

My previous opinion still stands. Any ID card scheme should be voluntary for those that wan't them and I do not agree that obtaining and carrying one should be mandatory.

Infact, as nearly everyone can apply for a provisional drivers license (even if they have no intention of driving) then I don't really see the need for a separate ID scheme unless its significantly cheaper to produce and buy.

Not entirely correct.
When this thread was active last year, out of curiosity I looked up how to obtain a provisional driving licence or a passport.
My memory is already hazy, but I concluded that, realistically and at reasonable effort and cost, I would be unable to get either.
I simply don't know anyone who could cross-sign the photograph. GP's are no longer allowed to do it - which was always the fallback option in the past, had I needed one.

 

[Typhoon]

When this thread was active last year, out of curiosity I looked up how to obtain a provisional driving licence or a passport.
My memory is already hazy, but I concluded that, realistically and at reasonable effort and cost, I would be unable to get either.

Snap!
Although I do seem to be able to counter-sign an application for a provisional driving license, oddly (if I have understood the requirements properly).

Both the police and click-and-collect companies have accepted my Old Man's Bus Pass when picking up items (of value) and having no other photo ID when it is merely proof that someone of that name lives in that county.

 

[furnessvale]

I don't see a problem with this. Retained membership of the EU must surely see compulsory I/D cards for all member states in the not too distant future.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I didn't wake up this morning thinking I would spend it all looking at this topic!

However, I found this interesting academic piece:
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/pol...itain-past-experience-and-policy-implications
[link to an academic paper entitled: Identity cards in Britain: past experience and policy implications' John Agar, November 2005, held on-line by H & P.
H&P is an expanding Partnership based at King's College London and the University of Cambridge, and additionally supported by the University of Bristol, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Leeds, the Open University, and the University of Sheffield.

We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.]

One extract:

R. applied for a 5th issue Ration Book and fortnight later applied again as F. producing a second Identity Card issued to F. on the same schedule. An alert clerk recognised him on the second occasion. When interviewed by the police R. gave the most circumstantial account imaginable of F.'s identity, activities, friends, business, hobbies and tastes, ... and a plausible explanation of why he held F's Identity Card on his behalf. It was only after the lengthiest cross-examination conducted by the interviewing constable with high forensic ability that it emerged that F was fictitious and R had entered himself twice on the same schedule under different names. R emerges either as schizophrenic or a liar ranking in intelligence and noble inventiveness with Munchausen. Moreover, he had the last word. To the policeman's culminating question 'Does then such a man exist as F.?' R replied 'To me he does'

My response would have been "such as man as 'F' exists, who is this 'R' you believe are interviewing?".

Which brings us nicely back to the OP about a person committing ID fraud when caught ticketless.

 

[najaB]

So, we already have an NI card with all the necessary details on, other than a photograph. We also have, as discussed previously, NHS cards, issued to every adult.

National Insurance cards haven't been issued for the better part of a decade, and explicitly said that they were *not* proof of identity in any case. I do not have, nor have I ever had a NHS card, and I know many other people who don't.

 

[Bletchleyite]

National Insurance cards haven't been issued for the better part of a decade, and explicitly said that they were *not* proof of identity in any case. I do not have, nor have I ever had a NHS card, and I know many other people who don't.

You get one when you register with a GP, but most people lose them because they are never asked for again.

 

[najaB]

You get one when you register with a GP, but most people lose them because they are never asked for again.

I didn't even get one when I registered. At least I have no recollection of having got one.

 

[Howardh]

You get one when you register with a GP, but most people lose them because they are never asked for again.

Wouldn't that be a national health number, as opposed to the national insurance number? I often get asked for the former on medical forms etc.

 

[cactustwirly]

So why propose one then?
You said:


I replied:

and


So, we already have an NI card with all the necessary details on, other than a photograph. We also have, as discussed previously, NHS cards, issued to every adult.

Just how many layers of ID do you require before you accept that someone is who they say they are?

The issue is, ultimately, you simply cannot prove identity.

At some point you have to take things on trust - the person themselves applying, the person cross-signing the application, the person cross-signing the person cross-signing, and so on. It's not as though supposedly responsible people who are considered acceptable to cross-sign applications ever commit crimes, or 'serious errors of judgment' themselves is it? e.g. Members of Parliament, senior police officers. Heaven forbid we let any terrorists, or their very close supporters, stand for, and sit, in parliament!

I am quite sure that any dubious character who wants to get a fake passport (or national identity document) can already do so through a variety of means. Just as they can bring in chemical weapons, traditional weapons, laundered money, modern slaves, drugs etc.

NI cards don't exist anymore, it's just a standard letter with your NI number printed on it, and is a PiTA to carry around everywhere!

 

[gysev]

I am totally against compulsory ID cards - that is a police state.

The UK is among the very few european countries without ID-cards. Do you really believe that Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany etc are scary police states? They are not !

Why not have government CCTV in your bedroom - if you aren’t overly friendly with animals what have you got to hide?

Speaking about a "police state": no country in the world has more CCTV than the UK. I think it is much easier for a "regime" to follow their citizens with CCTV than with ID-cards that are carried in your pocket...

 

[Baxenden Bank]

The UK is among the very few european countries without ID-cards. Do you really believe that Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany etc are scary police states? They are not !

28 EU states:
19 compulsory (to have a card, not necessarily to carry at all times),
7 optional,
2 none.

Speaking about a "police state": no country in the world has more CCTV than the UK. I think it is much easier for a "regime" to follow their citizens with CCTV than with ID-cards that are carried in your pocket...

Not much need for CCTV anymore, other than final proof. Mr Apple and Mrs Android Smartphone do it all for them, along with their friends Oyster for London (or equivalent ITSO/ENCTS) and Tom Tom. Add in some number plate recognition cameras on every trunk road and car park. Then finally your debit/credit card purchases.

 

[Bletchleyite]

NI cards don't exist anymore, it's just a standard letter with your NI number printed on it, and is a PiTA to carry around everywhere!

What would you need to carry it for?

 

[Howardh]

28 EU states:
19 compulsory (to have a card, not necessarily to carry at all times),
7 optional,
2 none.


Not much need for CCTV anymore, other than final proof. Mr Apple and Mrs Android Smartphone do it all for them, along with their friends Oyster for London (or equivalent ITSO/ENCTS) and Tom Tom. Add in some number plate recognition cameras on every trunk road and car park. Then finally your debit/credit card purchases.

Facial recognition too. Trialled and doesn't work - too many false positives - but give it 5 years.
On the positive side, with eye scans, facial recognition and such, we could phase out passports as all the information would be on a database and leaving the plane we could just stare at a camera.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Facial recognition too. Trialled and doesn't work - too many false positives - but give it 5 years.
On the positive side, with eye scans, facial recognition and such, we could phase out passports as all the information would be on a database and leaving the plane we could just stare at a camera.

Facial recognition, when it becomes workable, is VERY scary.

 

[AlterEgo]

I am totally against compulsory ID cards - that is a police state.

Why do you think that? There are many countries with compulsory ID cards which are certainly not police states.

 

[najaB]

Why do you think that? There are many countries with compulsory ID cards which are certainly not police states.

I have learned since returning to the UK that there is very little of what could pass for logic or reason behind anti-ID card sentiment, just lots of "That's all fine and good for Johhny Foreigner, but we're British damn you."

 

[Meerkat]

To me a country with compulsory ID cards is a police state.

 

[AlterEgo]

To me a country with compulsory ID cards is a police state.

Yes, we know that - just wondering why. Because it seems like a conviction not based on any logic as far as I can see.

 

[najaB]

To me a country with compulsory ID cards is a police state.

That's hyperbolic, in the extreme.

 

[Meerkat]

That's hyperbolic, in the extreme.

You don’t think the police being able to stop you and ask you to prove identity is a sign of a police state?

The onus is on those wanting to give the state these powers explaining why they need them, not on those not wanting them to have them to explain why not.