ID cards at long last

I already show driver’s license when I go to the post office, 9 out 10 they don’t bother asking for it, as they know me.
Well I for one won’t be lugging a card round with me, or my phone, if I’ve got a pocketless cardi on.

Here in Germany you are required to keep ID on you at all times. So, after 40 years of lugging my passport everywhere, I was relieved when I got German. Citizenship and just had a little card that I could slip into my purse.

(Of course, sometimes you could be caught out without ID - I suppose you had to go to the nearest police station as soon as possible and produce it. At least I had to do this with my driving licence once - again, this is no longer so much of an issue now the driving licence is also just a little plastic cheque card size card. The old German driving licences were A6 size paper booklets.)

I'D cards are just so much more convenient.

friendlygingercat

I would be happy to sign up for one.

Im surprised Farage is against these. He wants to disenfranchise some groups in the population and turn them into mere "guest workers" who can be deported at will. Digitital ID cards could be used to effectively deny resources to certian groups and place them further back in the queue behind British citizens. Access to social housing, benefits, free health provision and state education come to mind. In effect a new form of aparthied.

I would have thought it would be easier to deport someone who has ID. Not months, or years because they haven’t got a clue as to who they are.

From the horse’s mouth . . .
Cultures Secretary Lisa Nandy says: "So for people who come here and want to work, it will be compulsory to show it.
"For all other UK citizens it will be compulsory to have it, but not to show it.
"People will be able to choose whether they use it or not, but we think for a lot of people, you know, me included, who spend a lot of time digging out utility bills and National Insurance numbers and copies of passports to prove verification in lots of different ways that this will have a big benefit as well.

And where are they going to put the people they arrest for not having ID cards?

Statistics for France show they deported
22.000 illegal immigrants in 2024

I was travelling long distance in France on a bus. At Lyon
the Gendarmes got on and asked for ID cards.

They took off 3 young adults who could produce little to
nothing. I think this is the only time i've had a check in
30+ years.

Not before time.I find it difficult sometimes when I need a form of identification and have to take my passport as ~I don't have a driving licence.It's a good move forward and should have happened years ago, when it was first mooted.

I have no problem with an identity card being introduced. However I feel insisting that everyone has a smartphone isn't the right way to go about it.

Scribbles

CariadAgain, not having or wanting a smartphone is a personal choice we are all free to make. But I have to take issue with the notion that you need some kind of "technical" mindset to use one.
You don't! If you can operate a personal computer - and clearly you can as you post on GN - you can operate a smartphone. (Personally, I find using my phone is quicker and simpler for most things than is booting up a laptop but that's just me. )

I think that an allied thing to a "technical mindset" is whether one wants or needs to do something of oneself (emphasis on "oneself").

Re the personal computer - my usage of it is very basic. That being I can do emails, Facebook, looking up websites, YouTube and that is it. For the very basic setting-up of current computer = the computer guy that sold it to me had to come in and set it up for me for what few uses I make of it and it is so few that it just took him one hour in total to take out the old pc, put in a new pc and get it all wired-up (as I won't use wireless) and get icons up for the sites I use. It's so little I have on it that all of that was done in that hour.

I guess there's an element too - in all of us - of "If I myself personally don't need and don't want to do something = it proves literally impossible to learn it". Yep....I found I couldnt drive a car (I passed the test - second time of trying - back where I'm from decades ago) and then never did drive (long story...) and I could do with a car in this remote area with its terrible public transport and so I tried re-learning from scratch. Errr....I spend a lot on taxi fares.

Learning Welsh (as I've lived there since retirement) = I tried...but I'm guessing part of my total failure on that is when I realised there is pressure on people to do so that has turned into I literally can't remember a single word. The mental block from the pressure instantly put up a barrier in my mind that I can't get through if I wanted to. I will recognise about 20-30 words if I see/hear them and can't even remember them to use them myself.

I expect many of us literally can't do something unless we ourselves want to - if someone else wants us to want to it just ain't going to happen and our mind shuts off on the subject and is literally unable to do a thing. I bought a smartphone and tried - but couldnt even pass first base of switching it on and off (because I don't have the "want" to do so myself and feel pressured to use one as it stands now even and so my mind doesn't remember a thing - it just goes "I'm being pressured" and it switches off).

I guess it's down to whether we personally ourselves want to switch the neural pathways on for something and if we don't #shrugs.

I am going to a rather well known (in London) wine bar in a couple of weeks, as it’s in the City and in a sensitive building we have to show photo ID.

I have only got a paper driving licence, so I will have to take my passport, (they will not accept a photo of it on a phone) it would be easier to have a form of accepted ID on my phone.

This isn’t the only hospitality venue in London to require ID, (not just for age verification) we went to Tower 42 over 25 years ago and had to have either a passport or photo driving licence.

escaped

That's why spending time with grandchildren is invaluable. You watch them laugh at silly things, and it's infectious.

Oops wrong thread! 😆

We mostly use drivers licenses but those who don’t have them are inconvenienced. Recently in NZ we came across a rather unpleasant young man who wouldn’t belt my grandson buy a beer because he said he looked underage ( he is 26 and doesn’t) so he produced his Driving licence. Not good enough, he had to go back to the hotel and get his passport. I’d never go to that overpriced joint again- funny thing was, it was named after the lawyer in ‘ to kill a mockingbird’ Of course the bloke serving us hadn’t read it and didn’t know much about it.

That's why spending time with grandchildren is invaluable. You watch them laugh at silly things, and it's infectious.

The arguments for and against ID cards have changed since GN in 2022.
It makes interesting reading.

growstuff

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I had to laugh. My cousin just messaged me “so rubber boats of unknowns turn up on the shores and as a taxpayer suddenly I'm the problem? Foxtrot Oscar.”

I assume your cousin realises that ID cards will make it more difficult for "unknowns" to stay under the radar.

That is the one valid use I can see - ie "unknowns" wouldnt have one - whatever form it comes in.

Errrm.....well I hope not. Because I do remember there was some sort of thingie during Lockdown (details now gone hazy in my mind - as I never did Lockdown anyway).

But whatever-it-was (think it was to do with entrance into places and/or proof of having had 'that jab'??) - I knew "a little man" I could/would have gone to in those circumstances and bought a fake thingie off him to lie and say I'd had that jab - and I'm British and used to doing things in a standard conventional law-abiding way. But - yep....I knew who to go to and how much to pay (think it was around £40/£50). As a British person and law-abiding etc etc - I wouldnt have hesitated to pay for proof I'd "had the jab" if I'd been in a job that I would have been unfairly dismissed from for not having it - rather than standing up and making a point of deliberately stating I'd not had it and taking my employer to court if I could about it if they'd unfairly dismissed me. Nope - I would have just "paid to lie" to protect my income and hope no-one snitched on me that I'd not been anywhere near a needle.

So - yep I strongly suspect "illegals" are going to find ways round the system if we do introduce identity cards.

I'd love to be proved wrong obviously and:
a. There is a way we could all have such a thing without being expected to have smartphones or, maybe subsequently, jabs to put a "chip" into us
and
b. They'd work and the illegals wouldnt find a way round it

and I'd be the first one to ask a person to produce the card if I suspected they might be illegal and out the door they'd go....

Personally I have never understood the hoo-ha about ID cards and have carried one for over forty years as does every other Maltese citizen.

It has never been anything other than convenient and I like having an actual card, would not like it to be on-line.

It’s about time. I’ve never had a problem with ID cards. Both as a serving member of the Armed Forces and later as a dependent in foreign countries I have had to carry one. I was seldom asked to produce it and it never impacted on my individual freedoms in any way.

I still have my old one, in the war babies had them. Little brown card, think I will use that.

Almost all other countries have a mandatory ID card have it would make it much easier proving who to are for many purposes.
Those that want to travel overseas have to get a passport and a visa, you have to get an official ID to vote. Who you are is more important now than every before only criminals don’t want IDs

I m happy to have one
When I lived in the Far East we had to have one at all times it had your fingerprint and blood group on First time I knew my blood group (at 20)
If I d been found unconscious or worse they would have known who I was for my family to be informed
A good move I believe

Just like anything else. There are certain people about who will happily provide Fake ID cards/passports/driving license/certificates etc and unless these things are thoroughly checked(not just flashed in front of someone's face then so it will just carry on)

As Mt61 says how do you identify people that land here with no paperwork

Bukkie

My 81 year old Mum doesn't have or has ever had a mobile phone. She has never been on a computer in her life and doesn't have an email address.

We carry ID cards all the time in France. The ones we have had since Brexit have photographs and embedded fingerprints. They are not yet on our phones, but our health cards can be.
You do have to wonder reading some of these comments how people have avoided technology for so many decades. Why would you not want to learn about something so important to everyday life?

Mt61

Who are we supposed to show these cards to? Half the time I don’t take my phone out with me. I don’t carry my passport, or drivers id. All safely put away. I refuse to carry anything that has all my personal details on it, in case I loose it.

Unless we're required to carry ID at all times, which I haven't seen suggested, it would be up to you whether you want to carry your ID with you - maybe you want to vote, pick up a parcel from the post office, sign up for a new GP, start a new job - who knows?

CariadAgain, not having or wanting a smartphone is a personal choice we are all free to make. But I have to take issue with the notion that you need some kind of "technical" mindset to use one.
You don't! If you can operate a personal computer - and clearly you can as you post on GN - you can operate a smartphone. (Personally, I find using my phone is quicker and simpler for most things than is booting up a laptop but that's just me. )