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525 points alex77456 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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jjgreen ◴[] No.45385121[source]
Before the election I was approached by a bubbly young woman who tried to persuade me to vote Labour: "No thanks, last time I did that they tried to introduce ID cards", "But that's not in our manifesto" she replied, "It wasn't the last time I voted for them either".

It gives me no pleasure to be right on this.

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celticninja ◴[] No.45385315[source]
Could you explain what it is you find so distasteful about ID cards?

I mean if you have a passport then you already have an 'ID card', but I certainly don't want to take that out with me to prove my age.

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1. v3xro ◴[] No.45390224[source]
I am sure by now it has been explained by others. But basically - an ID document is like a bearer token that does not need to call a central authority every time it is verified. I am sure there are cases where it is, but a digital token that is linked to location every time it is verified is a quite different thing. Currently in the UK the law states that ultimately only a court can force you to identify yourself - by which time hopefully the purpose for which identification is being done is quite a serious and valid one. Making it cheaper to track people is not exactly a goal worth pursuing in my (not so humble) opinion.

To add to this - there is very rarely in my mind a need for someone to actually identify themselves - there are plenty of examples where it's useful for *audit* purposes to have a record, or to have a role-based credential to be able to do a thing, but *identity*?