Identification.

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michael scuffil
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Re: Identification.

Post by michael scuffil »

I live in a country where you have to have either an official ID card or a passport. Most Germans think they have to have an official ID (but they don't, if they have a passport) and that they have to carry it (but they don't, or a passport either). Foreigners like me don't have ID cards. (The ID also serves as a passport by agreement with numerous countries where no visa is required.)

The ID card has your address on it, and aye, there's the rub. For an ID card system to work and to be worthwhile, you have to have a national registration of residence. This would be extremely expensive to set up, and probably controversial. Although of course once it is set up, it can replace a lot of other formalities regarding all sorts of things: electoral registration, vehicle registration, driving licences, opening a bank account etc. etc.

I too am curious about this book 1984 by HG Wells.
Th.B. 27 1955-63
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graham
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Re: Identification.

Post by graham »

sejintenej wrote: Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:35 am [Reference your second sentence, that is exactly what we are saying - your only official ID document is a passport which has limited life (ten years I think) and costs a bomb. Like JR many people don't have passports and there is still a sizeable number who don't have or, being young or banned, don't have even driving licences.
On top of that your driving licence and passport are interlinked. This is, in itself offensive. Back in the dinosaur days the Commons discussed special finance for the DVLC to buy a computer to nmanage driving licences. The Minister involved made a special promise to the House that never ever would any information on the DVLC computer be made available to any other oerson, party, department etc. Of course this promise is minute by minute being breached
No, my passport and drivers license were not linked (except to the extent that, as a foreigner at the time I had to use my UK passport as ID to obtain it). I could not travel internationally with my ID card. Only domestically. I should have specified that. But my ID card, at least at the time, sufficed for most purposes one would need ID for. A state-issued ID card is sufficient to overcome the draconian impositions placed on most citizens here who dare attempt to vote in an election, for example, regardless of whether or not they possess a passport.
sejintenej wrote: Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:35 am
Going back to my nearly serious list of what the proposed ID card would have included, there is now a proposal that unless you formally opt out then on death your body will be unceremoniously hacked to bits, those bits being shoved in some unfortunate's body so they can cavort for many extra years. Of course, not having and carrying an ID card when you die, your choice is unknown so the body snatchers will maketheir financial profit. (They could, of course, simply dispose of your ID claiming that the corpse had none.
Seems fine to me. But unless I am mistaken, your gripe is with what information the proposed ID card would have contained and not the premise of an ID card. I'm not sure what we're arguing about?!
Graham Slater
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graham
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Re: Identification.

Post by graham »

LongGone wrote: Sun Dec 02, 2018 10:08 pm "Hang on a minute. I haven't lived in the UK for 14 years now, but are you all saying that there is still no such thing as a government issued ID card? When I first moved to the US, I didn't drive but it was incredibly easy to stroll to the local Department of Motor Vehicles and wait several hours (just like every one else) to be issued an official photo ID that I could use for air travel, buying beer etc. It made life so much easier. "

Your license is now only partially useful for this. For full coverage you have to get a Gold Star drivers license, which requires as much information as a passport. The idea of a National ID card is still viewed with great suspicion in the US, as the first step in a Communist takeover of government, to be followed by seizure of all guns, socialist medicine and the required teaching of evolution!
As someone who teaches Evolution, I fully approve this message!
Graham Slater
Maine B 1990 - 1993, Thorn A 1993 -1997
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