Why are the British paranoid about official ID?

[Dartzap]

One of the main reasons is the governments inability to set up a working database efficiently. Some of the recent ones have been fairly horrific when finally used and they have cost million more than they were meant to.

To think they want to send someone into space....

[Beowulf]

As it stands, there are plenty of places where they won't even take your credit-card if you can't show them a driver's license.

Oddly enough, requiring an ID is against the merchant's agreement for most credit card networks (Visa and Mastercard, at least). So theoritically at least, if they don't take it without an ID, you can threaten them with having the credit card access revoked.

[Darth Wong]

As it stands, there are plenty of places where they won't even take your credit-card if you can't show them a driver's license.

Oddly enough, requiring an ID is against the merchant's agreement for most credit card networks (Visa and Mastercard, at least). So theoritically at least, if they don't take it without an ID, you can threaten them with having the credit card access revoked.

Yeah, I'm sure Visa and Mastercard are going to revoke Disneyworld's credit card access. That's the last place where I was asked for ID when paying for something with a credit card.

[Keevan_Colton]

As it stands, there are plenty of places where they won't even take your credit-card if you can't show them a driver's license.

Oddly enough, requiring an ID is against the merchant's agreement for most credit card networks (Visa and Mastercard, at least). So theoritically at least, if they don't take it without an ID, you can threaten them with having the credit card access revoked.

Which really doesnt do you any good at the time. Plus a decent ID to go with a credit card rather than the bullshit that is a signature would be a definite improvement...we're heading the right way with the integrated Chip and PIN model, but the fact is a signature is possibly the stupidest form of identification of an individual possible these days...I'm sometimes tempted to sign things with a doodle of a smiley face flipping off the person...

[Macunaima]

Around here, there is a mandatory national ID card, which is local state issued, but following a national standard. Now, when someone gets a driver licence, in addition to the ID number of the driver licence itself, the document also has the number of the national ID card.

Therefore, one has no need to carry both, and the driver licence can act also as the de-facto national ID, as it has the national ID number in addition of the driver licence number.

[General Zod]

Oddly enough, requiring an ID is against the merchant's agreement for most credit card networks (Visa and Mastercard, at least). So theoritically at least, if they don't take it without an ID, you can threaten them with having the credit card access revoked.

Of course, not asking for an ID can leave the merchant liable if someone is illegally using your credit card. When I worked retail we were required to ask for IDs to cut down on fraud.

[Glocksman]

Oddly enough, requiring an ID is against the merchant's agreement for most credit card networks (Visa and Mastercard, at least). So theoritically at least, if they don't take it without an ID, you can threaten them with having the credit card access revoked.

Of course, not asking for an ID can leave the merchant liable if someone is illegally using your credit card. When I worked retail we were required to ask for IDs to cut down on fraud.

Don't the major CC networks simply reverse the charges in a lot of fraud cases and leave the retailer holding the bag?
If so, I don't blame merchants who do check despite VISA/MC/AMEX's policies against asking for ID.

In my case, I wrote *ask for ID* in the signature panel on my cards.
Despite that, I very rarely get asked for it.

[General Zod]

Don't the major CC networks simply reverse the charges in a lot of fraud cases and leave the retailer holding the bag?
If so, I don't blame merchants who do check despite VISA/MC/AMEX's policies against asking for ID.

Some offer that protection, but a lot of people use debit cards also, and they don't have quite that degree of security. There's always the possibility that someone who's card gets used fraudulently could have "ask for ID" written on it as well, or otherwise be really anal about it and decide to sue the store for refusing to ask to confirm someone's ID. Admittedly this policy depends on the merchant a lot. . . .retail chains and other high-end stores tend to ask for IDs more than say, convenience stores or grocery stores.

[RogueIce]

The fact is that there's a need for a reliable photo ID card, and if not everyone intends to get a driver's license, that is a great reason to have a non-drivers-license national photo ID card. As it stands, there are plenty of places where they won't even take your credit-card if you can't show them a driver's license.

In Florida at least (I don't know if it's universal across all 50 states) they have a State ID card, which is like the driver's license only without the driving part. The one I had looked like a DL anyway (though I'm sure cops could tell the difference, especially when they run your name), but I'd be surprised if the average clerk/ticket-taker/whoever knew or cared. Hell the thing gets issued by the DMV (or the DHSMV as they call themselves)anyway.

Hell, the license costs $20 and the ID card is $3 so it's hardly a budgetary starin to go get one.

As to the general topic, you pretty much always have some form of government-issued photo ID anyway, and you need one if you plan on doing a lot of things in life. So why "national ID card" is such a boogyman, while a driver's license or other gov-issued ID isn't is, well, silly.

I could maybe see it if they want to store your entire life history on the thing, since losing it would then be a major deal, but if it contains little more than what your typical driver's license already has on it, I don't see what the big deal is.

[Dalton]

I know New York has a means to get a person a photo ID that's not a driver's license in case it's needed for something like a passport.

[General Zod]

I know New York has a means to get a person a photo ID that's not a driver's license in case it's needed for something like a passport.

Pretty much all states offer a photo ID alternative to a license if you don't or can't drive as far as I'm aware.

[fgalkin]

But then you run into issues of what to do about people who don't want or aren't able to drive but who still need an ID. With the end result of it being one of the factors for the piss easy driving exams in the US and the idiotic laws like that one in California which essentially mandate giving out drivers licenses as IDs but without withholding the driving part. Bit bad for road safety, don't you think?

A much more sane method is, instead of tying the ID need to drivers licenses , to tie the driver's license information with an ID card, if you absolutely must have only one.

There is such a thing as "non-driver" ID, which is like a driver's license, except it doesn't allow you to drive.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Xisiqomelir]

I was under the impression that cost was the truly objectionable factor wrt Britain.

For amazingly irrelevant private information on a national identity card, Singapore is hard to beat among developing countries with "Race" (haha) and "Religion".

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I was under the impression that cost was the truly objectionable factor wrt Britain.

For amazingly irrelevant private information on a national identity card, Singapore is hard to beat among developing countries with "Race" (haha) and "Religion".

I think Malaysia has something similar.

[[R_H]]

I never understood the point of requiring a signature. It's a measure that far from proves that you are who you are, as you can approximate someone's signature fairly easily and your signature can change. Why not just imbed a smart chip into the card, and instead of asking for a signature (and maybe another piece of ID) biometric data between the card, and in the case of making purchases, the buyer are compared?

[General Zod]

I never understood the point of requiring a signature. It's a measure that far from proves that you are who you are, as you can approximate someone's signature fairly easily and your signature can change. Why not just imbed a smart chip into the card, and instead of asking for a signature (and maybe another piece of ID) biometric data between the card, and in the case of making purchases, the buyer are compared?

Signatures are just an extra layer of protection given that most people's are unique enough to stand out to scrutiny. They're not something that's supposed to be foolproof in and of themselves.

[FSTargetDrone]

In Florida at least (I don't know if it's universal across all 50 states) they have a State ID card, which is like the driver's license only without the driving part. The one I had looked like a DL anyway (though I'm sure cops could tell the difference, especially when they run your name), but I'd be surprised if the average clerk/ticket-taker/whoever knew or cared. Hell the thing gets issued by the DMV (or the DHSMV as they call themselves)anyway.

Pennsylvania has the same thing. It resembles the driver's license, but is slightly different. At least that's my recollection of the one I had before I got my DL. They've changed the DL design at least once since my first DL card, but I don't know what the current non-DL photo ID looks like.

[Soontir C'boath]

I know New York has a means to get a person a photo ID that's not a driver's license in case it's needed for something like a passport.

I had to pay $30 for it...

[Keevan_Colton]

I never understood the point of requiring a signature. It's a measure that far from proves that you are who you are, as you can approximate someone's signature fairly easily and your signature can change. Why not just imbed a smart chip into the card, and instead of asking for a signature (and maybe another piece of ID) biometric data between the card, and in the case of making purchases, the buyer are compared?

Signatures are just an extra layer of protection given that most people's are unique enough to stand out to scrutiny. They're not something that's supposed to be foolproof in and of themselves.

They dont offer anything but an illusion of protection though.

[Lonestar]

But then you run into issues of what to do about people who don't want or aren't able to drive but who still need an ID. With the end result of it being one of the factors for the piss easy driving exams in the US and the idiotic laws like that one in California which essentially mandate giving out drivers licenses as IDs but without withholding the driving part. Bit bad for road safety, don't you think?

A much more sane method is, instead of tying the ID need to drivers licenses , to tie the driver's license information with an ID card, if you absolutely must have only one.

Virginia, at least, hands out stat IDs upon request at $10. So it isn't as if there's an alternative.

Seriously, there isn't any big deal about ID cards.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

They like the illusion of anonymity...that's basically it...same reason americans scream and cry about CCTV cameras in public as a breach of privacy. They dont really understand that simply existing and interacting with society in almost any way at all means that they exist in countless records and so on that are all easily cross referenced.

Personally it doesnt really bother me, it doesnt really make much of a difference to me, if the government wants to track this information they already have it all anyway.

Then why issue such an ID? If you get the same or closely similar effect from simply cross refrencing existing records, then wouldn't it be easier to surreptitiously do so rather than publicly attempt to create a 'universal ID' system against the protests of the population (even minor ones)?
The ID itself doesn't automatically grant the government (or anybody else) any new knowledge, but a government cannot simply issue this kind of ID without using it for gathering additional information about citizens whether that is the intent or not.

witht hat in mind, what is the 'need' for a national ID at all, there's alot of talk that Drivers licenses could act as national IDs and vice versa but why would it need to? What purpose is there behind having a universal identification system, what driving need is there for this?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The IDs are meant to carry bio-metrics that would be "uncrackable" and so prove something of a more definitive article than a simple photo-ID like a Euro driving licence.

It was really meant to be a universal, to-hand identification method that would replace others and also be stored on a central government database. Many object to that idea, and given the NHS IT system, I happen to see a good reason for that objection.

[Darth Wong]

Thus, it is obvious that no one we regularly buy from bothers to even read the name, much less compare the signature.

Correct; people don't look at signatures. A few years ago, I saw an investigative news report (back when reporters actually investigated things) in which they tested bank cheque fraud security by writing a lot of obviously bogus cheques. One of them was actually signed "Wile E Coyote", in clearly legible handwriting. They all went through, and that was at major banks, not some gas station in the middle of nowhere.

[Sea Skimmer]

The fact is that there's a need for a reliable photo ID card, and if not everyone intends to get a driver's license, that is a great reason to have a non-drivers-license national photo ID card. As it stands, there are plenty of places where they won't even take your credit-card if you can't show them a driver's license.

In my state, and most if not all others in the US, you can already simply go and get a non drivers photo ID card, which has all the same information and security on it. I’ve had one for a long time, because it made flying on planes easier before I had a license (that was before September 11th BTW). So in the US at least, a national ID card would just turn into another pointless expansion of federal bureaucracy. If the terrorist can forge the multiple holograms on the damn thing, then I’ll bet they won’t find it much harder to deal with biometrics data.

[ray245]

I was under the impression that cost was the truly objectionable factor wrt Britain.

For amazingly irrelevant private information on a national identity card, Singapore is hard to beat among developing countries with "Race" (haha) and "Religion".

There is race, but there's no religion.

Although, the main use of my IC is used to watch those rated NC-16 films.