There was a time when i was at uni that i didn't have a in date passport or drivers license - ended up getting a passport so i had ID for pubs etc but the reason i had neither was very much for the reasons FLT pointed out so i can assure you the argument has footing. Couldn't afford to maintain a car and i think my holiday that year was to Wales. Tbh i wouldn't have given this a second thought if the issue wasn't pointed out but having now put some thought into it i can certainly see the issue.
So, have I got this right?, The Tories are proposing that anybody that does not own a driving licence or a passport is not entitled to have a say in how their life is going to be run?. How the hell is that in any way fair or democratic?.
Probably. I hate the thought of compulsory ID cards myself though, it's just so big brother. That said, digital technology means we're going that way whether we like it or not anyway (google knows more about you than your mum does).
No they aren't you can provide proof of address as an alternative. The whole idea is just being tested. See the BBC link I posted.
yup, lets face it all our phones are pretty much bugged and i'm pretty sure 99% of the population will have a phone. right now i know voting can be abused. Hell my mum even gave my vote to her bf as i said i wasn't voting as i rent but still registered at my mums. I don't think ID cards are bad, if anything its good for those who as you said don't get a licence and passport. It actually means they can use it for when they are asked for ID
I agree there Archers, if only because an ID card introduces the probability that people will be asked to show them on demand at some time in the future. I can't say I'm relishing the prospect of being stopped in the street and asked to produce ID, for no other reason in my case than it's nobody's damn business so the Big Brother aspect of it is relevant to me. I appreciate that sometimes it could be necessary, but I suspect abuses of the power would enable it to become a monitoring tool over everyday life. As to our digital footprint, that genie moved out of the lamp a few years ago and is just a reality now...I don't like it but if I choose to live a modern, consumerist lifestyle, I have to accept the consequences. All that said, I think ID cards could be useful but they need to be A: cheap or free and B: not something that can be demanded of you to show at request...we shall see
In my immediate family of 11 adults, none has a passport and of the 8 drivers, 2 have photo licenses.
You can be sure those ID's would have some sort of electronic chip in them. Tbh I think oir phones will become our ID in the future. Just tap them on a policeman's device and it will bring up your name and photo for the policeman or whoever.
And in my family, myself, my wife, my brothers and cousins, all my many in-laws, my parents and my adult kids, their spouses and in-laws all have both - except my mother-in-law who only has a passport. They're a right old mixture of differing backgrounds, political leanings, education and relative wealth so probably represent a reasonable cross-section. Would be interesting to see national stats.
I agree with you in principle about ID cards giving an opportunity to invade personal freedom, but the reality in the UK is that it’s not necessary to have ID cards to do that. We have the most CCTV cameras per head of population in the world I believe, so if Big Brother wants to keep an eye on any of us, he can.
The thing that I don't get* is that there have been a million and one campaigns to try to encourage the public to engage in the political process for the sake of democracy and now the Government want to make things a bit more complicated to go out and vote. *I have my suspicions about why they are doing it.
It's not the being watched Chilco, it's the probable stop and produce scenarios that would emerge, and the abuses thereof. I have nothing to hide (well, not much anyway ) so it would annoy me to think someone might ask. I can understand a need to show a driving license, when you are a driver but not so struck on a license to be a citizen.
I agree entirely. The chances are that the cards would be chipped like bank cards, and contain personal details which could be scanned without you even knowing it was happening, so the “stop and produce” scenario would probably only need to happen if the technology couldn’t detect a working card on someone. On top of the “Big Brother” idea of the state keeping tabs on you, the thought of data on the whereabouts of masses of people being used for commercial means is pretty scary.
The bit in bold is the crux of the matter, not the owning of the card but the need to carry it when you are just out and about. It's only a step away from chipping humans.
do you think our phones don't do that already though? Just because no one talks about it but i think its safe to say edward snowden blew the lid on that
Yeah, agreed. I saw a lot of that in Spain in the eighties, when the Guardia Civil would routinely stop people in the street and ask to see their papers.
On holiday in Rome recently I discovered a google app on my phone that I hadn't even known was there; it was a timeline of places I'd visited that day, a couple of cafes, the Coliseum, the AS Roma store. Scary stuff, frankly.
