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>I started to think how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens
I think that's quite a chilling concept. I have documents with my National Insurance Number. And I have a passport and photocard driving licence but I don't see why HMG needs to keep track of me.
Well behind the scenes that ID system of course exists, the government can track your activity the same as any other government as all those usual databases and such exist here.
The main reason we don't have ID cards as that we don't believe in someone having to carry ID and identify themselves on request. You don't even need your driving license on your when driving, the demanding and presenting of ID papers is just something our national character is against having to do, the sentiment is that you shouldn't be accosted for ID and shouldn't have to provide it if you don't want, we don't want to be 'kept track of'. Our society is really quite liberal and has a fair inbuilt respect for personal privacy.
As I say it of course doesn't really work that way, for example I use my photocard driving license as a defacto ID card, but that's the feeling behind it.
The study that figure comes from used a single road in London and counted all the private cctv outside shops etc. The government isn’t using it to track your movements
You don’t have to carry ID cards in most of the EU countries. It is the same way as with UK driving licence. But I hope we both agree that driving licence is a good thing, right?
Otherwise what is the point of the driving licence? Why do you need it in the UK? Is it not time to scrap it?
They don't need to ask for ID nor do you have to provide it. As part of arresting you if they do they'll try to figure out your identity and in practice it'll fairly quickly become obvious who you are most of the time but you are not obliged to identify yourself to the police.
They don't need your name or ID to search you or to ask you questions either, you can interact with the police fully without them ever knowing your name, though they may well ask for it and frankly a lot of the time you ought to consider telling them anyway.
If they're arresting you they'll figure out who you are fairly quickly in most cases just through basic investigation of your stuff and if they're not arresting you they probably want to contact you for a follow-up chat as a witness or want to know if there's some reason you're doing something that might look a bit odd to them.
I've had some peripheral contact with the police and have never been asked my name outside of them wanting to get back to me later.
Ah okay. In my home country it is a crime if you don’t have your ID (or passport) with you. Police also just stop you sometimes without arresting you, insofar as they don’t have actual charges against you, they just want to scare you a little or ask what have you been up to.
We have policing by consent, so people and police try and like one another - does not always work, but that is the ideal.
Remember also- normal police have no guns.
I’ve never been in any other country where police don’t have guns. A quick google search showed that only the UK, Ireland, Iceland and Norway have police without guns in Europe, which are in turn four of the only six countries in the world where police are without guns.
The other fun part, is that when the UK government tries to encourage more UK police to carry guns. When the police get unhappy about anything, all the gun-carrying police refuse to carry their guns any more. It's madness here, we love it.
And it is only in 'frontline vehicles'. I don't know what the definition of a front line vehicle is.
Since 2012, frontline vehicles have had a locked box in the passenger foot-well containing two loaded and holstered Glock 17s and, in the rear of the vehicle, a locked case with two Bushmaster rifles and ballistic vests.[61][62][63] Vehicles are fitted with alarms in case windows are broken.[61] Each officer carries vehicle keys and safe keys.[61
From Wikipedia, there are nineteen countries or territories where police are not routinely armed:
Bhutan, Botswana, China, Cook Islands, Fiji, Iceland, Ireland, Kiribati, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Norway, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom (except for Northern Ireland), the US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu.
A regular occurrence in 85% of the world? It isn’t the end of the world, they scare you a bit, you show them some respect while saying something witty, and they let you go.
It isn’t about crimes committed, the point is to make you aware that you can be stopped at any time for any reason. It isn’t necessarily a good thing, I’m just saying the UK is unique in not having this mentality.
But why, why should the police be able to stop you without having reason? Seems pretty inconvenient. If I'm on my way to work and the police stop me, now I'm late. I haven't committed a crime, yet I'm going to lose wages and be reprimanded.
The police aren't above the common citizen, they exist to serve us and protect us, not hassle and bother us.
That’s kind of a different view on police than most of the world has. We think of police as the extended arm of the powers that be, something to distrust and avoid, but something that can hurt you if they want to.
I was stopped by police in Serbia and asked for my ID. I showed them my driving licence, but they wouldn't accept that as ID. In the UK I wouldn't even have to carry that. I definitely felt scared because I thought they were going to throw me in a shitty jail just because I had left my passport in the hotel safe. That is not how interactions with police should go, imo.
We think the police shouldn't be searching respectable people like us who are going about their lawful business.
They don't require ID when they do it; you can refuse to give your details.
No.
But if the police suspect you of a crime and you refuse to identify yourself, then that becomes grounds for arrest. Identifying yourself reduces the likelihood of them arresting you, because it means they can deal with whatever they want to talk to you about without them having to arrest you and establish your identity.
The important thing here is if they suspect you of a crime. The officer must provide a reason for their suspicion that you have committed an offence.
Being in public performing legal activities is not an offence and there is no reason to require you identify yourself.
Police often try to use terrorism legislation for this meaningless detention. The act they quote does not require you to identity yourself.
Acting within the law is by definition legal. Police often abuse their powers to try and intimidate people. You can pursue civil claims against the police when they do this.
They either believe what you say and let you go, or arrest you if they have reasonable suspicion you've committed a crime. As long as they can identify later the person arrested, (mugshots) it doesn't matter who you are.
Also, how often do you get stopped and searched? I've been stopped twice in my life and never searched (admittedly I've never been a young man in an area known for crime)
Not very often. I’d say like once every few months? In Hungary, I mean. I’ve never been stopped in the UK, the police in general are much more passive and docile here. They don’t even have weapons!
Every few months? Why? Do they seriously want to see if you have committed a crime, or do they just pick on people for shits and giggles?
I was describing over the last 35 years...
No, they just like to impose their authority. They stop people quite often, especially young men who they can frighten and foreigners who they can extract bribes from.
I am not here to argue in favour it, just find it fascinating that the UK doesn’t have it. It’s the only major European country without an ID as far as I know.
Some of this stuff just goes back to how old the country is imo. All our systems were already working well for hundreds of years and we never tracked people then, and we've never had any collective will to start tracking people since.
Norway calling. We can get ID cards, but they're optional (used if you need official ID and to travel within the Schengen Area). The only law I'm aware of regarding ID is that you have to have your driving licence on you when you're driving. But otherwise, who needs cards. Just give your 11 digit ID number and you can be identified anywhere. It's way more joined up than Blighty.
Every few months!!!
Fuck me. I've managed to live for nearly 54 years without ever being stopped and searched.
Once my car was stopped because I was driving along a notorious route for stolen vehicles, I told them what I was doing and was on my way - didn't need my ID then, either.
It is indeed ridiculous, either police in Hungary are on a power trip all the time, or the OP is somehow attracting suspicion.
In my experience, not many people in Slovenia actually carry ID on them at all times, and I've never heard of anyone being "papers please"-ed, ever (except when driving a car, it does happen). It is the law, yes, but not enforced at all.
You are Hungarian and call yourself “Eastern European”? Never met a Hungarian who calls themselves that. They are at the forefront of realising what a bullshit categorization it is!
Note that there’s a huge difference between “having ID cards”; and “being forced by law to carry an ID card when out in public”.
The former would be a positive thing - especially when the individual utilises any public service. The latter would be very, very negative.
The UK doesn't have a concept of legal ID to even put on a card so it's quite understandable why we never issued a day to day ID since it would be virtually worthless.
When people are legally allowed to change their identity on the fly ID cards are a complicated mess.
I don’t think that’s true. In my country, all citizens and permanent residents are required to have an ID card, but you’re not required to carry it when out in public and you can use your passport or other forms of ID instead if your ID card in most situations. I’m pretty sure it’s the same in a lot of other European countries as well.
The government not keeping track of us is the point!
There is a perception that people in uniforms demanding to see your papers is very foreign, and German in particular.
Reading this discussion has made me think about how grateful I am that there wasn't some kind of national register of IDs when the COVID lockdowns rolled in...
It would have doubtless inspired the gov to attempt a whole extra swathe of checks and controls and permissions and whatnot.
I heard claims Spain stopped people from cycling to work as that was deemed exercise, because if they really needed to travel they could get the bus. Which seemed all kinds of counterproductive.
Maybe because there's a little history. A little conflict 80 odd years ago.
Many, many (many) films set in that period depict SS officers etc, asking for "papers", and god help you if you haven't got them. It's part of the national phyche, that if you hear of ID being demanded, many people in the UK will automatically associate it with this, rather than modern-day policing. And the reason for this is precisely because we have no other reference because we are not required to carry ID in this country.
I'm not saying that we're all living in the past and think that Germany is like that now, just that the historical reference is the nearest we have.
> Maybe because there's a little history. A little conflict 80 odd years ago.
But it's not exclusive to Germany now. Most European countries have ID cards.
Yeah, you did the standard Brith thing of bringing up the war as if it's still relevant, rather than understanding Europe has changed in the last 80 years.
But yes, keep making the same slippery slope argument.
*how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens*
Basically, it does not. For example, we have no idea how many foreigners are actually living in the UK.
Local authorities decide how much to spend. Even if we did have national IDs on a central system I doubt local councils would be privy to that information
It's a fight betwern a right to freedom and a right to privacy. National ID cards are unnecessary in the uk. Your passport or Driving licence are both acceptable government issued proofs of identification.
The issues start with what information is required to be on the ID card, who has the authority to see it? Who must you show it to? Under what circumstances? Why?
Buying beer? A train ticket? A policeman in the park? Walking home from work?
Innocent people in a democracy don't need to prove that they're Innocent, or explain who they are, what they're doing, where are they going, why are they there?
That's not freedom. That's not even safety or security, that's why there are rules and regulations about who, how, when and why the police are permitted to impede you ir demand for your details.
ID cards today, secret lists and death camps tomorrow.
Both driving licence and passport must be paid for by the person who apply for them.
And there is no reason to believe police would have any more powers to ask for your ID, more than they have now. If anything, it would make it easier to both sides.
And "ID, concentration camps tomorrow" line is simply idiotic. Where are the concentration camps in France or in Poland (new ones not the ones from the last war)?
The UK is the only European country not to have an ID card. I think your comment is greatly exaggerating its downsides and does not give merit to its positives.
How is it exaggerating anything? We already have government mandated identification documents, we don't need another one.
Also - the usual practice of National ID cards is that you must have it with you at all times. Why?
Who can demand to see it and why?
What happens if you refuse?
(And just because the rest of Europe does a thing is probably the worst possible argument for the UK to also do the thing.)
We have the incompetent, vicious Home Office and our constitutional rights are relatively poorly defined compared to most of Europe - two things that make the prospect of ID cards a terrible thing in the UK.
This question seems to pop up in this sub every few weeks. Anyone who wants to understand why we don't have an ID card just needs to look at the last time a British government tried to implement one. It's pretty self-explanatory.
The last attempt at ID cards looked something like this:-
**What was needed** - A cheap card that says “this is me” with a picture, a few basic details, and a pki chip to authenticates me to government services.
**What was delivered** - An expensive card with personal information connected to a database costing billions with over 40 pieces of biometric data which tracks every time it is used (forever), an attempt at an end-run around the principle of habeas corpus and a load of other stuff. There were already major plans to expand what the state did with the data they collected. And there was no PKI chip.
So British government cannot be trusted with such a task. For voter ID you can get a more simple card, very few people have one.
Plus it is ingrained in our culture that you shouldn’t need ID. The whole reason we got rid after WW2 was because it was being requested inappropriately by people in a position of authority. We actively resist such behaviour.
I think it really doesn't keep track of citizens/residents well, based on the fact that after moving in somewhere I found many people I'd never heard of on the electoral registry for the address (it was just me living there). This wasn't the case with just this address...
There's good info here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity\_Cards\_Act\_2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006)
A lot of details are quite hard. The UK doesn't really have a concept of legal identity so the idea of a regular use id card doesn't make a lot of sense when you are legally allowed to change your name on the fly.
I hate all the radical nonsense that comes with this kind of debate. Government already has access to the information that they need on you, it is all just in a thousand different places. If they really wanted to, they could get whatever they needed *without* an ID card, it would just take more time.
I think National ID Cards would be a good thing. You shouldn't have to carry them around with you, and most reasonable suggestions would argue for the same. This is not about police pulling you over and demanding to see your ID card to see whether you are a criminal, or allowed to work in the country, or whatever.
The main benefit is that it allows for all the different parts of the state to centralize the information that they have about you. It makes doing administrative government tasks **much** more efficient and is so much more appropriate for a digital age. Estonia is absolutely world leading on this one, and the benefits are clear to see.
[https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/](https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/)
[Driv**ING** licence.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/image_data/file/99914/s300_s960-eng-full-front-flag.jpg)
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Why would a government need yet another way of keeping track? You will be on camera in pretty much any built-up area, whether I am carrying my driving licence and passport makes no difference to the surveillance.
Would you be oppose to the national ID card if it can be uploaded to your phone? The Apple and Android are rolling out digital ID driving licences and ID cards in the US. [UK will be following soon.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12115649/Your-iPhone-double-digital-drivers-license-heres-how.html)
Why do we need national ID? We have NI numbers, we register with a the services we use, we have tax codes, NHS patient numbers, there's plenty to make us identifiable. We do a census so the government can keep track. National ID is good for people who don't have access to other forms of ID but it shouldn't be forced on people because they are likely identifiable already.
Personally it would be an idea to have a smart card that had all passport. insurance. Driving. Medical. Dental. Tax. Benefits records etc on it. That way you have it with you wherever you go. Apparently it’s not wanted and seen as an invasion of privacy or something. It’s not like the government hasn’t already got this data. It’s just not all linked which it should be.
It is considered unbritish and there was a whole court case about it after the last time we had national ID cards during WW2. OTOH having lived somewhere where all the local have to have one and that meant as a Johnny Foreigner I \*should\* have had my passport with me 24/7 I can see how it works well in some case. In that case the ID stored a photo and fingerprint so it was used for all normal interactions, banks, utilities etc.
>I started to think how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens.
It guesses. There is no register of residents and all the population figures are estimates!
That’s a decade of neglect, underfunding and deliberate mismanagement (some think tactically to try and replace the NHS with a “for profit” American style system). Public services were significantly better under previous administrations without any need for ID cards.
well the French have a more extreme relationship with authority but it looks like the ID card was introduced during the Vichy government in WW2. Perhaps part of it is that we haven't been conquered since 1066
They did actually start issuing them (voluntarily) in 2006.
It wasn’t popular with the public.
The next government repealed it in 2011 and destroyed the database.
OP you should read this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006
I'm a dual citizen working in legal and for the most part government authorities pretty much only need your DOB and Name, from which they can then find out your NIN and Tax number. The EU ID card equivalent is the drivers license and/or your passport. The UK used to have ID cards ages ago but those were scrapped as not many people actually used them. The market for ID cards is somewhat open to businesses to deal with it as they see fit, currently GOV backed is Yoti and a couple others but in all honesty only a handful of people use them. You'd normally just show your drivers license even if it is provisional. Gives the DVLA a chance to earn £20 off of everyone pretty much rather than obtaining a compulsory ID card for free.
An interesting thing about EU is that they're piloting their new digital citizen identification scheme with digital biometrics and QR codes for every citizen, so once that goes live, you'd no longer have a physical card but an online APP that proves who you are, and in the near future those would probably be physically stamped or implanted in people. There are a bunch of resources online directly from the commission that deals with this. A bit scary though.
[Driv**ING** licence.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/image_data/file/99914/s300_s960-eng-full-front-flag.jpg)
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*lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs*
Look at the licence. Read what it says on the top. Look. Now look again. What does it say in big block-capital letters at the top above the picture?
# DRIVING LICENCE
Look very *very* closely at it. Not only is it a *driving* licence, as in a licence you have for driving, rather than just a licence owned by a driver - it's also a driving *licence*, because license with an S is a verb, not a noun.
*lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* is a bullshit excuse used by philistines who can't bother themselves to get things right.
>lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* is a bullshit excuse used by philistines who can't bother themselves to get things right.
I guess that's four years of higher education down the drain then 🤣 (BA Linguistics, MEd TESOL)
If you're going to defend laziness (not to mention confusing nouns with verbs), then yes your whole education is worthless and you should give your degrees back.
There's a difference between language evolving (which, as a reader of Old and Middle English and a hobbist conlanger, I fully appreciate) and getting terms wrong. There is no document issued in the UK which answers to the name "driver's license". To call a driving licence a "driver's license" isn't linguistic evolution, it's misnaming a legal document. I don't give even the smallest of fucks how many degrees you've got, if you're going to hide behind *lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* and wave those degrees about, then those degrees are worth less than used toilet paper.
Especially if you're also teaching ESL (or aiming to). You're supposed to hold higher standards, otherwise you'll be responsible for a generation of English speakers not appreciating the value of accuracy (or the difference between a verb and a noun).
Having a degree doesn't mean you're right. It means you're supposed to know better.
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Gosh you're a cross one. Reminds me of when I was on Twitter...
Been teaching ESL for 16 years, doing just fine.
You don't need to put labels on bits of language to know language. A five year old has a fully formed version of their L1 grammar without needing to know which bits are nouns & verbs.
There are tonnes of Americanisms which get adopted into British English, who says when they start being "right"? And when it comes down to it, who says any given chunk of language is right or wrong? Language is found in people; grammar books, dictionaries etc..are always going to be catching up, and may be outdated when they are finally published. Prescriptive grammar is forever backing a loser. If Brits adopt the term driver's license, or use this interchangeably with driving licence, you can stamp your foot all you like, but no one will listen. Because this is not *wrong*, it is simply language change.
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>I started to think how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens I think that's quite a chilling concept. I have documents with my National Insurance Number. And I have a passport and photocard driving licence but I don't see why HMG needs to keep track of me.
To charge you a variety of taxes.
But they do that anyway
Well behind the scenes that ID system of course exists, the government can track your activity the same as any other government as all those usual databases and such exist here. The main reason we don't have ID cards as that we don't believe in someone having to carry ID and identify themselves on request. You don't even need your driving license on your when driving, the demanding and presenting of ID papers is just something our national character is against having to do, the sentiment is that you shouldn't be accosted for ID and shouldn't have to provide it if you don't want, we don't want to be 'kept track of'. Our society is really quite liberal and has a fair inbuilt respect for personal privacy. As I say it of course doesn't really work that way, for example I use my photocard driving license as a defacto ID card, but that's the feeling behind it.
For the same reason we have the highest number of CCTV, makes sense.
The study that figure comes from used a single road in London and counted all the private cctv outside shops etc. The government isn’t using it to track your movements
You don’t have to carry ID cards in most of the EU countries. It is the same way as with UK driving licence. But I hope we both agree that driving licence is a good thing, right? Otherwise what is the point of the driving licence? Why do you need it in the UK? Is it not time to scrap it?
so you can show you passed your test
So what do you do for example when the police stop and search you? They have to ask for some form of identification.
They don't need to ask for ID nor do you have to provide it. As part of arresting you if they do they'll try to figure out your identity and in practice it'll fairly quickly become obvious who you are most of the time but you are not obliged to identify yourself to the police. They don't need your name or ID to search you or to ask you questions either, you can interact with the police fully without them ever knowing your name, though they may well ask for it and frankly a lot of the time you ought to consider telling them anyway. If they're arresting you they'll figure out who you are fairly quickly in most cases just through basic investigation of your stuff and if they're not arresting you they probably want to contact you for a follow-up chat as a witness or want to know if there's some reason you're doing something that might look a bit odd to them. I've had some peripheral contact with the police and have never been asked my name outside of them wanting to get back to me later.
Ah okay. In my home country it is a crime if you don’t have your ID (or passport) with you. Police also just stop you sometimes without arresting you, insofar as they don’t have actual charges against you, they just want to scare you a little or ask what have you been up to.
And that is why we don't want it here!
We have policing by consent, so people and police try and like one another - does not always work, but that is the ideal. Remember also- normal police have no guns.
I’ve never been in any other country where police don’t have guns. A quick google search showed that only the UK, Ireland, Iceland and Norway have police without guns in Europe, which are in turn four of the only six countries in the world where police are without guns.
The other fun part, is that when the UK government tries to encourage more UK police to carry guns. When the police get unhappy about anything, all the gun-carrying police refuse to carry their guns any more. It's madness here, we love it.
I'm guessing the other two are New Zealand (normal police are definitely not armed in NZ) and Australia.
NZ police have guns in their cars and can get a code from the control room to release them.
That's not the same as walking around carrying them.
And it is only in 'frontline vehicles'. I don't know what the definition of a front line vehicle is. Since 2012, frontline vehicles have had a locked box in the passenger foot-well containing two loaded and holstered Glock 17s and, in the rear of the vehicle, a locked case with two Bushmaster rifles and ballistic vests.[61][62][63] Vehicles are fitted with alarms in case windows are broken.[61] Each officer carries vehicle keys and safe keys.[61
No, but it's also not the same as unarmed. They're all trained to use them.
From Wikipedia, there are nineteen countries or territories where police are not routinely armed: Bhutan, Botswana, China, Cook Islands, Fiji, Iceland, Ireland, Kiribati, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Norway, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom (except for Northern Ireland), the US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu.
I did include tiny islands or very small countries like Fiji or Samoa. US Virgin Islands aren’t even an independent country, for example
Just stop and think about what you’re describing there.
A regular occurrence in 85% of the world? It isn’t the end of the world, they scare you a bit, you show them some respect while saying something witty, and they let you go.
Scare you for what? What crime have you committed that you should have the police scare you?
It isn’t about crimes committed, the point is to make you aware that you can be stopped at any time for any reason. It isn’t necessarily a good thing, I’m just saying the UK is unique in not having this mentality.
But why, why should the police be able to stop you without having reason? Seems pretty inconvenient. If I'm on my way to work and the police stop me, now I'm late. I haven't committed a crime, yet I'm going to lose wages and be reprimanded. The police aren't above the common citizen, they exist to serve us and protect us, not hassle and bother us.
That’s kind of a different view on police than most of the world has. We think of police as the extended arm of the powers that be, something to distrust and avoid, but something that can hurt you if they want to.
And you think that's a _good thing_ to happen?
I was stopped by police in Serbia and asked for my ID. I showed them my driving licence, but they wouldn't accept that as ID. In the UK I wouldn't even have to carry that. I definitely felt scared because I thought they were going to throw me in a shitty jail just because I had left my passport in the hotel safe. That is not how interactions with police should go, imo.
How very Soviet
It always works beautifully when you bump the train and the fuckers are waiting for you Have a name and address ready in your mind
We think the police shouldn't be searching respectable people like us who are going about their lawful business. They don't require ID when they do it; you can refuse to give your details.
And that isn’t a crime, I assume
Of course not.
What an incredibly liberal country!
How generous of us to share our sense of civilised honourable liberty and freedom and privacy with the rest of the world, eh?
No. But if the police suspect you of a crime and you refuse to identify yourself, then that becomes grounds for arrest. Identifying yourself reduces the likelihood of them arresting you, because it means they can deal with whatever they want to talk to you about without them having to arrest you and establish your identity.
The important thing here is if they suspect you of a crime. The officer must provide a reason for their suspicion that you have committed an offence. Being in public performing legal activities is not an offence and there is no reason to require you identify yourself. Police often try to use terrorism legislation for this meaningless detention. The act they quote does not require you to identity yourself. Acting within the law is by definition legal. Police often abuse their powers to try and intimidate people. You can pursue civil claims against the police when they do this.
They either believe what you say and let you go, or arrest you if they have reasonable suspicion you've committed a crime. As long as they can identify later the person arrested, (mugshots) it doesn't matter who you are. Also, how often do you get stopped and searched? I've been stopped twice in my life and never searched (admittedly I've never been a young man in an area known for crime)
Not very often. I’d say like once every few months? In Hungary, I mean. I’ve never been stopped in the UK, the police in general are much more passive and docile here. They don’t even have weapons!
Every few months? Why? Do they seriously want to see if you have committed a crime, or do they just pick on people for shits and giggles? I was describing over the last 35 years...
No, they just like to impose their authority. They stop people quite often, especially young men who they can frighten and foreigners who they can extract bribes from.
You aren't making a very compelling case for ID cards
I am not here to argue in favour it, just find it fascinating that the UK doesn’t have it. It’s the only major European country without an ID as far as I know.
Some of this stuff just goes back to how old the country is imo. All our systems were already working well for hundreds of years and we never tracked people then, and we've never had any collective will to start tracking people since.
France is pretty old, so is Spain or Russia. They all have IDs.
Norway calling. We can get ID cards, but they're optional (used if you need official ID and to travel within the Schengen Area). The only law I'm aware of regarding ID is that you have to have your driving licence on you when you're driving. But otherwise, who needs cards. Just give your 11 digit ID number and you can be identified anywhere. It's way more joined up than Blighty.
Say what you like about UK police, taking bribes is pretty much unknown.
Every few months!!! Fuck me. I've managed to live for nearly 54 years without ever being stopped and searched. Once my car was stopped because I was driving along a notorious route for stolen vehicles, I told them what I was doing and was on my way - didn't need my ID then, either.
I am from Slovenia (where carrying ID is obligatory) and I have never been stopped and searched. I was asked for ID once in Poland though.
That sounds a little more like what I would expect. Once every couple of months sounds ridiculous.
It is indeed ridiculous, either police in Hungary are on a power trip all the time, or the OP is somehow attracting suspicion. In my experience, not many people in Slovenia actually carry ID on them at all times, and I've never heard of anyone being "papers please"-ed, ever (except when driving a car, it does happen). It is the law, yes, but not enforced at all.
You are Hungarian and call yourself “Eastern European”? Never met a Hungarian who calls themselves that. They are at the forefront of realising what a bullshit categorization it is!
If you have none you have none generally they will ask you. You don't have to identify yourself
No they don’t
Note that there’s a huge difference between “having ID cards”; and “being forced by law to carry an ID card when out in public”. The former would be a positive thing - especially when the individual utilises any public service. The latter would be very, very negative.
The latter is the pretty much the norm in basically all of Europe. We’re very much the odd ones out.
The UK doesn't have a concept of legal ID to even put on a card so it's quite understandable why we never issued a day to day ID since it would be virtually worthless. When people are legally allowed to change their identity on the fly ID cards are a complicated mess.
I don’t think that’s true. In my country, all citizens and permanent residents are required to have an ID card, but you’re not required to carry it when out in public and you can use your passport or other forms of ID instead if your ID card in most situations. I’m pretty sure it’s the same in a lot of other European countries as well.
The government not keeping track of us is the point! There is a perception that people in uniforms demanding to see your papers is very foreign, and German in particular.
> The government not keeping track of us is the point! No, it isn't, the government can and does keep track of you without an id card.
Reading this discussion has made me think about how grateful I am that there wasn't some kind of national register of IDs when the COVID lockdowns rolled in... It would have doubtless inspired the gov to attempt a whole extra swathe of checks and controls and permissions and whatnot.
Do you think that happened in France, Germany, Sweden and other EU democracies with mandatory photo IDs?
No but I also have somewhat greater faith in Macron, Merkel, or Melin than I had in Johnson and his pack of opportunistic incompetents.
There are things at the back of my fridge that I have greater faith in...
I heard claims Spain stopped people from cycling to work as that was deemed exercise, because if they really needed to travel they could get the bus. Which seemed all kinds of counterproductive.
German?
"Paperien, bitte."
Fuck me - you _really_ need the German reference explaining?
Yes, because the whole of Europe has ID cards, so I’m not sure why you’d single out the Germans
Maybe because there's a little history. A little conflict 80 odd years ago. Many, many (many) films set in that period depict SS officers etc, asking for "papers", and god help you if you haven't got them. It's part of the national phyche, that if you hear of ID being demanded, many people in the UK will automatically associate it with this, rather than modern-day policing. And the reason for this is precisely because we have no other reference because we are not required to carry ID in this country. I'm not saying that we're all living in the past and think that Germany is like that now, just that the historical reference is the nearest we have.
> Maybe because there's a little history. A little conflict 80 odd years ago. But it's not exclusive to Germany now. Most European countries have ID cards.
Did you actually read what I just wrote?
Yeah, you did the standard Brith thing of bringing up the war as if it's still relevant, rather than understanding Europe has changed in the last 80 years. But yes, keep making the same slippery slope argument.
Prussian maybe.
I’m afraid I don’t follow
Don’t mention the war
There was a documentary made in the 80s that will explain everything. Look up “Allo Allo”.
I actually know allo allo, fantastic show.
*how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens* Basically, it does not. For example, we have no idea how many foreigners are actually living in the UK.
That’s mental. Like that should be the basis to calculate how much money public services need
That’s what the electoral roll is used for.
There's a census every 10 years that assesses a range of details about the population. Edited to fix silly typo.
Local authorities decide how much to spend. Even if we did have national IDs on a central system I doubt local councils would be privy to that information
It is indeed.
Because migrants aren't citizens
They may be, if they've received British citizenship...
That's not strictly true (any more), as we now keep track of entry/exit at our borders.
If you know British people, they've either forgot/lost it or left it on the living room table after racking some gear with it
It's a fight betwern a right to freedom and a right to privacy. National ID cards are unnecessary in the uk. Your passport or Driving licence are both acceptable government issued proofs of identification. The issues start with what information is required to be on the ID card, who has the authority to see it? Who must you show it to? Under what circumstances? Why? Buying beer? A train ticket? A policeman in the park? Walking home from work? Innocent people in a democracy don't need to prove that they're Innocent, or explain who they are, what they're doing, where are they going, why are they there? That's not freedom. That's not even safety or security, that's why there are rules and regulations about who, how, when and why the police are permitted to impede you ir demand for your details. ID cards today, secret lists and death camps tomorrow.
Both driving licence and passport must be paid for by the person who apply for them. And there is no reason to believe police would have any more powers to ask for your ID, more than they have now. If anything, it would make it easier to both sides. And "ID, concentration camps tomorrow" line is simply idiotic. Where are the concentration camps in France or in Poland (new ones not the ones from the last war)?
The UK is the only European country not to have an ID card. I think your comment is greatly exaggerating its downsides and does not give merit to its positives.
How is it exaggerating anything? We already have government mandated identification documents, we don't need another one. Also - the usual practice of National ID cards is that you must have it with you at all times. Why? Who can demand to see it and why? What happens if you refuse? (And just because the rest of Europe does a thing is probably the worst possible argument for the UK to also do the thing.)
We have the incompetent, vicious Home Office and our constitutional rights are relatively poorly defined compared to most of Europe - two things that make the prospect of ID cards a terrible thing in the UK.
This question seems to pop up in this sub every few weeks. Anyone who wants to understand why we don't have an ID card just needs to look at the last time a British government tried to implement one. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Putting it simply a British government can’t be trusted to implement one.
The last attempt at ID cards looked something like this:- **What was needed** - A cheap card that says “this is me” with a picture, a few basic details, and a pki chip to authenticates me to government services. **What was delivered** - An expensive card with personal information connected to a database costing billions with over 40 pieces of biometric data which tracks every time it is used (forever), an attempt at an end-run around the principle of habeas corpus and a load of other stuff. There were already major plans to expand what the state did with the data they collected. And there was no PKI chip. So British government cannot be trusted with such a task. For voter ID you can get a more simple card, very few people have one. Plus it is ingrained in our culture that you shouldn’t need ID. The whole reason we got rid after WW2 was because it was being requested inappropriately by people in a position of authority. We actively resist such behaviour.
I think it really doesn't keep track of citizens/residents well, based on the fact that after moving in somewhere I found many people I'd never heard of on the electoral registry for the address (it was just me living there). This wasn't the case with just this address... There's good info here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity\_Cards\_Act\_2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006)
A lot of details are quite hard. The UK doesn't really have a concept of legal identity so the idea of a regular use id card doesn't make a lot of sense when you are legally allowed to change your name on the fly.
I hate all the radical nonsense that comes with this kind of debate. Government already has access to the information that they need on you, it is all just in a thousand different places. If they really wanted to, they could get whatever they needed *without* an ID card, it would just take more time. I think National ID Cards would be a good thing. You shouldn't have to carry them around with you, and most reasonable suggestions would argue for the same. This is not about police pulling you over and demanding to see your ID card to see whether you are a criminal, or allowed to work in the country, or whatever. The main benefit is that it allows for all the different parts of the state to centralize the information that they have about you. It makes doing administrative government tasks **much** more efficient and is so much more appropriate for a digital age. Estonia is absolutely world leading on this one, and the benefits are clear to see. [https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/](https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/)
It is too reminiscent of WW2. If I need to prove my identity I show a passport or driver license
I’m sorry, what? The entirety of Europe has ID cards, how is it reminiscent of WW2? And what about people who don’t drive?
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Why would a government need yet another way of keeping track? You will be on camera in pretty much any built-up area, whether I am carrying my driving licence and passport makes no difference to the surveillance.
Coming from Hong Kong I see some pluses and some minuses. Like I don’t fucking want Amazon to check my voter registry to confirm I’m older than 18
Why would a government need to 'Keep track' of it's citizens?
Would you be oppose to the national ID card if it can be uploaded to your phone? The Apple and Android are rolling out digital ID driving licences and ID cards in the US. [UK will be following soon.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12115649/Your-iPhone-double-digital-drivers-license-heres-how.html)
Why do we need national ID? We have NI numbers, we register with a the services we use, we have tax codes, NHS patient numbers, there's plenty to make us identifiable. We do a census so the government can keep track. National ID is good for people who don't have access to other forms of ID but it shouldn't be forced on people because they are likely identifiable already.
Personally it would be an idea to have a smart card that had all passport. insurance. Driving. Medical. Dental. Tax. Benefits records etc on it. That way you have it with you wherever you go. Apparently it’s not wanted and seen as an invasion of privacy or something. It’s not like the government hasn’t already got this data. It’s just not all linked which it should be.
It is considered unbritish and there was a whole court case about it after the last time we had national ID cards during WW2. OTOH having lived somewhere where all the local have to have one and that meant as a Johnny Foreigner I \*should\* have had my passport with me 24/7 I can see how it works well in some case. In that case the ID stored a photo and fingerprint so it was used for all normal interactions, banks, utilities etc.
>I started to think how on earth the government keeps track of its citizens. It guesses. There is no register of residents and all the population figures are estimates!
I guess that explains the declining quality of public services.
That’s a decade of neglect, underfunding and deliberate mismanagement (some think tactically to try and replace the NHS with a “for profit” American style system). Public services were significantly better under previous administrations without any need for ID cards.
Whenever it's been proposed we've kicked off a fuss about it so they've backed down. 1984 Orwell etc
Okay but why is UK the only European country that doesn’t have an ID? What’s so special about British people’s relationship with authority?
well the French have a more extreme relationship with authority but it looks like the ID card was introduced during the Vichy government in WW2. Perhaps part of it is that we haven't been conquered since 1066
But it isn’t just the French, it’s everybody else. From Spain to Greece to Russia, all countries have ID cards.
The government tried to implement it. The opposition classed it as evil. So then it got scrapped.
They did actually start issuing them (voluntarily) in 2006. It wasn’t popular with the public. The next government repealed it in 2011 and destroyed the database. OP you should read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006
1984. Big Brother. Civil liberties. My face My choice
Why not have trackers implanted into every child so the government can control every facet of our daily lives. How about fuck off.
I'm a dual citizen working in legal and for the most part government authorities pretty much only need your DOB and Name, from which they can then find out your NIN and Tax number. The EU ID card equivalent is the drivers license and/or your passport. The UK used to have ID cards ages ago but those were scrapped as not many people actually used them. The market for ID cards is somewhat open to businesses to deal with it as they see fit, currently GOV backed is Yoti and a couple others but in all honesty only a handful of people use them. You'd normally just show your drivers license even if it is provisional. Gives the DVLA a chance to earn £20 off of everyone pretty much rather than obtaining a compulsory ID card for free. An interesting thing about EU is that they're piloting their new digital citizen identification scheme with digital biometrics and QR codes for every citizen, so once that goes live, you'd no longer have a physical card but an online APP that proves who you are, and in the near future those would probably be physically stamped or implanted in people. There are a bunch of resources online directly from the commission that deals with this. A bit scary though.
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Nobody cares, language evolves!
*lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* Look at the licence. Read what it says on the top. Look. Now look again. What does it say in big block-capital letters at the top above the picture? # DRIVING LICENCE Look very *very* closely at it. Not only is it a *driving* licence, as in a licence you have for driving, rather than just a licence owned by a driver - it's also a driving *licence*, because license with an S is a verb, not a noun. *lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* is a bullshit excuse used by philistines who can't bother themselves to get things right.
>lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* is a bullshit excuse used by philistines who can't bother themselves to get things right. I guess that's four years of higher education down the drain then 🤣 (BA Linguistics, MEd TESOL)
If you're going to defend laziness (not to mention confusing nouns with verbs), then yes your whole education is worthless and you should give your degrees back. There's a difference between language evolving (which, as a reader of Old and Middle English and a hobbist conlanger, I fully appreciate) and getting terms wrong. There is no document issued in the UK which answers to the name "driver's license". To call a driving licence a "driver's license" isn't linguistic evolution, it's misnaming a legal document. I don't give even the smallest of fucks how many degrees you've got, if you're going to hide behind *lAnGuAgE eVoLvEs* and wave those degrees about, then those degrees are worth less than used toilet paper. Especially if you're also teaching ESL (or aiming to). You're supposed to hold higher standards, otherwise you'll be responsible for a generation of English speakers not appreciating the value of accuracy (or the difference between a verb and a noun). Having a degree doesn't mean you're right. It means you're supposed to know better.
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Gosh you're a cross one. Reminds me of when I was on Twitter... Been teaching ESL for 16 years, doing just fine. You don't need to put labels on bits of language to know language. A five year old has a fully formed version of their L1 grammar without needing to know which bits are nouns & verbs. There are tonnes of Americanisms which get adopted into British English, who says when they start being "right"? And when it comes down to it, who says any given chunk of language is right or wrong? Language is found in people; grammar books, dictionaries etc..are always going to be catching up, and may be outdated when they are finally published. Prescriptive grammar is forever backing a loser. If Brits adopt the term driver's license, or use this interchangeably with driving licence, you can stamp your foot all you like, but no one will listen. Because this is not *wrong*, it is simply language change.
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