ID cards

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sTeamTraen
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Re: ID cards

Post by sTeamTraen » Sat Apr 03, 2021 7:57 pm

Lew Dolby wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:47 pm
Presumably, if we'd had ID cards all along, all us OAPs would be carrying pictures of ourselves as 16/18 year olds.

A year or three ago, was talking to a french acquaintance (when we could still go to France). He's older than me and his french ID card had his pic at 16.
I think it would probably be possible to organise renewal every 10 years or so, with this Internet thingy. Again, think of an ID card as a small free passport that can't be used for travel.

Incidentally, France now has an excellent way to get your photo to the government; initially it's only for driving licences, but they are going to extend it to passports and ID cards. They have done a deal with the people who put photo booths in shopping centres to get them connected. So if your photo is for an official purpose, you can tell the booth to upload a copy of the photo to the government server and give you a reference number. Then when you apply for your licence you just have to copy that number into the form (everything else is anonymous until then). You don't have to fight the web site to get the upload to work (my last UK passport application was really easy except that it kept sticking on quality issues around the photo), and the people in the office only have to deal with headshots with proper backgrounds from the booth, and not selfies taken on a night out.
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Re: ID cards

Post by noggins » Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:12 pm

Windrush? If its difficult to prove now you have the right to be in the uk its going to be equally difficult to prove you have that right when you are forced to get your compulsory id card. But I'm sure that wouldn't affect the demographics of many posters here, though.

Anyway what actually matters is the national
Id database. The cards themselves are theatre. The datavase offers administrative convenience and danger.
I might be persuaded by a very detailed proposal, but “everyone has one, il be fine, crapita and the home office will sort the details out” is rather unconvincing.

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Re: ID cards

Post by dyqik » Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:47 pm

noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:12 pm
Windrush? If its difficult to prove now you have the right to be in the uk its going to be equally difficult to prove you have that right when you are forced to get your compulsory id card. But I'm sure that wouldn't affect the demographics of many posters here, though.
So you agree, we needed ID cards ages ago, and the fact that we don't have them is a massive problem.

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Re: ID cards

Post by noggins » Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:13 pm

No and no. “Give the state extra powers now in case they are incompetent on the future” doesnt persuade.

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Re: ID cards

Post by nekomatic » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:10 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:04 pm
So unless you think the UK is the least fascist bootlicky country in the world - or that the lack of an official document to prove identity and citizenship is the last bastion of liberty, holding back the imminent tides of fascism - stop being such a drama monarch.
Eh? Who said either of those things?

In the 2006 debate I was most exercised about the likelihood that it would all be a hugely expensive flop - I thought the people warning of a slippery slope to fascism were possibly over-egging it. In 2021 I find my perspective has shifted a bit.

If it’s parochial to worry about such things, do you think that if Poland, say, didn’t already have compulsory national ID then nobody there would be the slightest bit worried if it were proposed? Is it that you don’t believe a single national ID database offers any potential for misuse by the state that the state doesn’t already have by other means, or that you don’t believe the state could possibly misuse it?
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Re: ID cards

Post by Gfamily » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:23 am

noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:13 pm
No and no. “Give the state extra powers now in case they are incompetent on the future” doesnt persuade.
agree, proof of "A" does not grant proof of "B"

Where
"A" = Name and where you live, so that you can be found if necessary, and subject to possible legal measures if any discrepancy found.
"B" = right to anything else
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Re: ID cards

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:24 am

noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:13 pm
No and no. “Give the state extra powers now in case they are incompetent on the future” doesnt persuade.
What extra powers does distributing ID cards give the state?

You just brought up the fact that the state has the power to deport any citizen that can't prove their ID. So how does giving citizens the ability to prove their ID give the state excess powers?

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Re: ID cards

Post by Gfamily » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:33 am

dyqik wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:24 am
noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:13 pm
No and no. “Give the state extra powers now in case they are incompetent on the future” doesnt persuade.
What extra powers does distributing ID cards give the state?

You just brought up the fact that the state has the power to deport any citizen that can't prove their ID. So how does giving citizens the ability to prove their ID give the state excess powers?
No - the state took upon itself the right to deport any person who couldn't prove their right not to be deported*.
Being able to confirm that you are the person they want to deport isn't a great help.

* including anyone who might have a right to be considered a citizen of any other country - so I (and maybe my children) could be deported because my mother's birth in Ireland gave me the right to apply for Irish citizenship.
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Re: ID cards

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:48 am

Gfamily wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:33 am
dyqik wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:24 am
noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:13 pm
No and no. “Give the state extra powers now in case they are incompetent on the future” doesnt persuade.
What extra powers does distributing ID cards give the state?

You just brought up the fact that the state has the power to deport any citizen that can't prove their ID. So how does giving citizens the ability to prove their ID give the state excess powers?
No - the state took upon itself the right to deport any person who couldn't prove their right not to be deported*.
Being able to confirm that you are the person they want to deport isn't a great help.

* including anyone who might have a right to be considered a citizen of any other country - so I (and maybe my children) could be deported because my mother's birth in Ireland gave me the right to apply for Irish citizenship.
So ID cards make no difference. The state can deport you if it wants to without ID cards. It can require you to identify yourself without ID cards. Adding ID cards doesn't change that, and so I struggle to see what powers the state gains from ID cards being issued that it doesn't already have or could easily add without them being issued.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Gfamily » Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:51 am

dyqik wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:48 am
Gfamily wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:33 am
dyqik wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:24 am


What extra powers does distributing ID cards give the state?

You just brought up the fact that the state has the power to deport any citizen that can't prove their ID. So how does giving citizens the ability to prove their ID give the state excess powers?
No - the state took upon itself the right to deport any person who couldn't prove their right not to be deported*.
Being able to confirm that you are the person they want to deport isn't a great help.

* including anyone who might have a right to be considered a citizen of any other country - so I (and maybe my children) could be deported because my mother's birth in Ireland gave me the right to apply for Irish citizenship.
So ID cards make no difference. The state can deport you if it wants to without ID cards. It can require you to identify yourself without ID cards. Adding ID cards doesn't change that, and so I struggle to see what powers the state gains from ID cards being issued that it doesn't already have or could easily add without them being issued.
"A" (see above - particularly the second part)
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Re: ID cards

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:00 am

I can't see anything there that the lack of ID cards stops the government from doing.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:01 am

The issue with Windrush was that the state destroyed records of who had the right to stay, and then deported people who couldn't establish that entitlement.

If citizens had an automatic right to a document establishing their rights, the government couldn't just throw it all in the trash. (Well, they'd have to lie about it)
nekomatic wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:10 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:04 pm
So unless you think the UK is the least fascist bootlicky country in the world - or that the lack of an official document to prove identity and citizenship is the last bastion of liberty, holding back the imminent tides of fascism - stop being such a drama monarch.
Eh? Who said either of those things?

In the 2006 debate I was most exercised about the likelihood that it would all be a hugely expensive flop - I thought the people warning of a slippery slope to fascism were possibly over-egging it. In 2021 I find my perspective has shifted a bit.

If it’s parochial to worry about such things, do you think that if Poland, say, didn’t already have compulsory national ID then nobody there would be the slightest bit worried if it were proposed? Is it that you don’t believe a single national ID database offers any potential for misuse by the state that the state doesn’t already have by other means, or that you don’t believe the state could possibly misuse it?
Here's a map of countries by ID card policy:

Image
All the red and blue countries have ID cards. In the red countries they're compulsory.

Any claimed consequence of introducing ID cards in the UK should be easily backed up by demonstrating those consequences in a significant proportion of those countries. Interested to see everyone's favourite examples of how ID cards enabled those governments to do something dastardly that would otherwise have been difficult/impossible.
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Re: ID cards

Post by dyqik » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:06 am

The US being blue is ABMCTT, tbh. The UK also has optional ID cards (proof of age cards, or drivers licenses) in the same sense.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:28 am

A lot of countries probably have slightly complicated systems - I doubt the US is as exceptional as its citizens like to feel ;)

It's from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n ... by_country

They define an ID card thusly:
A national identity document ("ID", "ID card", "identity card", "IC", "citizen card" or "passport card") is an identity card with a photo, usable as an identity card at least inside the country, and which is issued by an official authority.

Driver's licenses and other cards issued by regional governments indicating certain permissions are not counted here as national identity cards.
However for the USA they clarify:
The U.S. passport card is issued by the federal government via the Department of State upon voluntary request. The primary purpose of the passport card is used as a Federal issued Identity card and a limited travel document under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, similar to the usage of national identity cards in the Schengen Area. However, passport cards are also conclusive proof of U.S. citizenship under federal law, accepted for domestic airline travel under the REAL ID Act,[131] a List A document for Form I-9 purposes,[132] and generally proof of identity/citizenship both inside and outside the United States.[133] Despite this, the predominant and de facto method of identification remains the driver's license (or non-driver ID card) issued by each state, because driver's license is needed for driving, although these generally do not indicate citizenship or nationality.
Whereas in the UK:
When a formal identity document is needed, a passport or a driving licence is most often used. For those who do not have—or wish to carry—a passport or driving licence, the UK Government backs the Proof of Age Standards Scheme, which allows private companies to issue identity cards to UK residents, primarily to enable young people to prove age in the purchase of age-restricted goods and services.
So the big differences are government responsibility for the card, rather than the private sector, and the wallet-sized format rather than a little red book.
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Re: ID cards

Post by bolo » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:33 am

The blue is because of passport cards?! Nobody here has a passport card. I mean yes, I know they exist, but I've literally never seen one, and I bet most Americans don't even know they exist.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:39 am

And yet, they nevertheless exist.

The UK has no equivalent, and most of the arguments against having something similar hinge upon the claim that it would be a big help to fascism.

While ignoring the fact that actual fascism-adjacent stuff recently was facilitated by not having a proper ID/citizenship register.

I don't mind dramatic arguments, but I would like the people making them to look at a map first.
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Re: ID cards

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:43 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:23 pm
Things like renting property require ID. Renters of shared properties don't necessarily even have utility bills in their name.

I think opening a bank account generally requires ID as well.

Then there's the worst-case scenario of needing to prove you're entitlement to stay in the UK, when the actual government is actually trying to deport a whole generation of settled immigrants, as has already been mentioned. I'm sure that wouldn't affect the demographics of many posters here, though.
The correct defense in these cases is not to have an ID card system, but to remember and apply the fundamental principle of being innocent until proven guilty. There is no reason why a person should require ID when renting unless the landlord wants it. There should not be a requirement for ID when opening a bank account - if you put in money and take it out, the only requirement should be that the bank can be reasonably sure that they are giving the money to the right person. There is no reason why someone should need to prove entitlement to stay in the UK. That's reversing the correct burden of proof. It should be for the state to prove that an individual does not have the right to stay.

ID cards do not fix these problems - they further entrench them.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:50 am

jdc wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:34 pm
bob sterman wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:15 pm

Here's the seemingly innocuous but chilling wording from Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act 2006 (Information that may be recorded in the register)...
Records of provision of information
9 The following may be recorded in the entry in the Register for an individual—
(a) particulars of every occasion on which information contained in the individual’s entry has been provided to a person;
(b) particulars of every person to whom such information has been provided on such an occasion;
(c) other particulars, in relation to each such occasion, of the provision of the information.
Can I just check what your interpretation of this paragraph is?
I interpret it to mean that if you buy a bottle of wine, and the checkout operator uses your ID to verify your age (and I expect that this would be required by law), then the database would record that you were checked for the purpose of buying a bottle of wine (and this might include other data relating to the transaction such as what other things you bought in the same transaction), when and where it took place, and the identity of the checkout operator.

Similarly for any other circumstance in which your ID card is used, resulting is a huge quantity of data about you and your lifestyle being recorded.

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Re: ID cards

Post by nekomatic » Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:15 am

Of course lots of other countries have ID cards - if you’re a technocrat designing a national infrastructure it’s the completely obvious system architecture decision. Single database, single globally unique primary key, unique access token. Everything’s nice and neat and simple to define. I can completely understand why it appeals to people, like me, who think like this.
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:01 am
Any claimed consequence of introducing ID cards in the UK should be easily backed up by demonstrating those consequences in a significant proportion of those countries. Interested to see everyone's favourite examples of how ID cards enabled those governments to do something dastardly that would otherwise have been difficult/impossible.
This is a remarkably disingenuous line of argument. Nobody has said ‘ID cards lead to fascism a significant proportion of the time’.

The point, also in respect of ‘fascists gonna fascist with or without ID cards’, is that a card that becomes routinely used in everyday transactions, plus a database that stores details of those transactions, makes it potentially much, much easier to overreach. Imagine today’s government wanted to, say, stop anyone suspected of being a terrorist from buying petrol or a train ticket. Doesn’t sound implausible to me that they might if they could, and sounds pretty Daily Mail-friendly. Today that would be completely unworkable. If everyone has to carry the ID card and every checkout has to be equipped to check it (as petrol stations would already need to be, cos they sell cigarettes) - suddenly possible by executive order. I’m sure most other national ID schemes don’t currently enable that, but it’s absolutely what the 2006 proposal would have enabled.

To make ‘UK ID cards would have stopped Windrush’ stand up, you have to assume that the card carries details of the holder’s immigration status - in what proportion of the red or blue countries on the map was that true in the 1950’s? Or you have to assume that at the point it’s decided to add that information to the card because there’s a moral panic about it, the Home Office hasn’t yet destroyed the records. Windrush deportees IIRC didn’t generally lack evidence of their lifetime spent in the UK, the Home Office just didn’t care to listen to them.

I went to see whether Shelter say proving ID is one of the top issues facing renters - they don’t. I went to see whether JRF say proving ID is one of the top issues facing those excluded from financial services and they do mention it, but only among a complex mixture of factors; in any case, the documentation you need to open a UK bank account is to satisfy anti-money-laundering rules, not just a simple proof of ID. Is a national ID card alone enough to open a bank account in every red and blue country on the map?

Last of all, let’s shove all the middle-class pearl-clutching stuff to one side and just take as read for now that there are amazing convenience benefits awaiting the UK from having an ID card. How much UK taxpayers’ money* would you like to spend on achieving that, please?
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Re: ID cards

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:37 am

nekomatic wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:15 am
The point, also in respect of ‘fascists gonna fascist with or without ID cards’, is that a card that becomes routinely used in everyday transactions, plus a database that stores details of those transactions, makes it potentially much, much easier to overreach. Imagine today’s government wanted to, say, stop anyone suspected of being a terrorist from buying petrol or a train ticket. Doesn’t sound implausible to me that they might if they could, and sounds pretty Daily Mail-friendly. Today that would be completely unworkable. If everyone has to carry the ID card and every checkout has to be equipped to check it (as petrol stations would already need to be, cos they sell cigarettes) - suddenly possible by executive order. I’m sure most other national ID schemes don’t currently enable that, but it’s absolutely what the 2006 proposal would have enabled.
Millennie Al wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:50 am
I interpret it to mean that if you buy a bottle of wine, and the checkout operator uses your ID to verify your age (and I expect that this would be required by law), then the database would record that you were checked for the purpose of buying a bottle of wine (and this might include other data relating to the transaction such as what other things you bought in the same transaction), when and where it took place, and the identity of the checkout operator.

Similarly for any other circumstance in which your ID card is used, resulting is a huge quantity of data about you and your lifestyle being recorded.
Among all the democracies in which there is an ID card system or population register, do you know of any in which a government database is routinely consulted whenever people want to do things buy alcohol in a shop?

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Re: ID cards

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:42 am

nekomatic wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:15 am
To make ‘UK ID cards would have stopped Windrush’ stand up, you have to assume that the card carries details of the holder’s immigration status - in what proportion of the red or blue countries on the map was that true in the 1950’s? Or you have to assume that at the point it’s decided to add that information to the card because there’s a moral panic about it, the Home Office hasn’t yet destroyed the records. Windrush deportees IIRC didn’t generally lack evidence of their lifetime spent in the UK, the Home Office just didn’t care to listen to them.

I'm suggesting that if an ID system had been brought in as planned during the early 2000s, members of the Windrush generation would have been given an official document stating their lawful immigration status. That would have made it much more difficult for the Home Office to illegally deport them under the later 'hostile environment' policy.

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Re: ID cards

Post by shpalman » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:43 am

In order to buy cigarettes from machines, a user needs to insert their "carta regionale dei servizi" which is actually the generalized health-service card issued by the region. It has a chip, a bar code, and a magnetic strip, and shows my name and date and place of birth but not my photo or current residence. This is the same card as was scanned when I got my covid vaccine, and is used to apply the local petrol discount*, and also works in the water dispensers you find dotted around here and there.

Anyway I'm not sure if a person's cigarette buying habits get stored along with their health records.
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Re: ID cards

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:46 am

shpalman wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:43 am
In order to buy cigarettes from machines, a user needs to insert their "carta regionale dei servizi" which is actually the generalized health-service card issued by the region. It has a chip, a bar code, and a magnetic strip, and shows my name and date and place of birth but not my photo or current residence. This is the same card as was scanned when I got my covid vaccine, and is used to apply the local petrol discount*, and also works in the water dispensers you find dotted around here and there.

Anyway I'm not sure if a person's cigarette buying habits get stored along with their health records.
The first is just an electronic equivalent of showing ID to a shopkeeper.

It should be possible to find out whether the data is being recorded.

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Re: ID cards

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:47 am

I don't think I'd argue if somebody said a particular ID card proposal was disproportionate relative to the benefits it'll bring. And in the case of the UK specifically the country has certainly got bigger fish to fry.

I've been responding to comments like this:
noggins wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:59 pm
Im quite surprised by the general attitude towards ID cards in this forum. Y’all nice liberal progressive people on most everything else, why lick the fascist boot on this one?
which certainly seem to imply there's something inherently fascisty about ID cards, and like this:
science_fox wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:20 pm
What are the advantages for me to have an ID card? I don't need to prove my id for any part of my daily life.
which suggested the poster was unsure about cases when a person might need to identify themself.

As long as we all accept that there's nothing inherently fascisty about ID cards, that people do already have to identify themselves, and that the UK currently lacks an official document for that purpose, we can probably have a more sensible conversation.

I just find it a bit odd that ID cards is so ingrained in the Anglophone mind as a stepping-stone towards/catalyst for government oppression, when that doesn't seem to be the case anywhere else. There must be some interesting and unique historical/cultural phenomena at play.
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Re: ID cards

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:51 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:42 am
nekomatic wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:15 am
To make ‘UK ID cards would have stopped Windrush’ stand up, you have to assume that the card carries details of the holder’s immigration status - in what proportion of the red or blue countries on the map was that true in the 1950’s? Or you have to assume that at the point it’s decided to add that information to the card because there’s a moral panic about it, the Home Office hasn’t yet destroyed the records. Windrush deportees IIRC didn’t generally lack evidence of their lifetime spent in the UK, the Home Office just didn’t care to listen to them.

I'm suggesting that if an ID system had been brought in as planned during the early 2000s, members of the Windrush generation would have been given an official document stating their lawful immigration status. That would have made it much more difficult for the Home Office to illegally deport them under the later 'hostile environment' policy.
Exactly.

I'd also assume that in most places, being given a national ID card implies some sort of right to reside in that nation- they don't just hand them out willy-nilly to tourists. I can't speak for everywhere, but in Portugal citizens have one type of card, and non-citizen residents have a very similar one with an expiry date on it. It's not super complicated.
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