Using a passport for for banking etc. identification

[L00b]

I know there are liberals who won't like this but isn't it about time we had an official identity card. It would solve so many problems, particularly for people like me who don't have a driving licence or passport. Why should I shell out on things I neither want or need to prove my identity?

Do you think ID cards are free, in most countries that have them?

 

That aside, it would go a long way to (help-) solving pretty much everything that is currently held to be 'wrong' in the UK: immigration, benefits, access to NHS, ID theft <...>.

Why should I shell out for an idenity card when I have a photo drivers licence

For most countries that have them, ID cards are a legal requirement. Driving licenses are an optional luxury.

 

And the holder has a personal duty to maintain the address on the card current.

Edited October 30, 2017 by L00b

[apelike]

I know there are liberals who won't like this but isn't it about time we had an official identity card. It would solve so many problems, particularly for people like me who don't have a driving licence or passport. Why should I shell out on things I neither want or need to prove my identity?

 

I think the cost of the ID card scheme was estimated to be around £5.4 Billion if introduced with individual cards to cost anywhere from £28 upwards.

[tinfoilhat]

I think the cost of the ID card scheme was estimated to be around £5.4 Billion if introduced with individual cards to cost anywhere from £28 upwards.

 

I think it was well upwards of £28.

 

---------- Post added 30-10-2017 at 13:25 ----------

 

Do you think ID cards are free, in most countries that have them?

 

That aside, it would go a long way to (help-) solving pretty much everything that is currently held to be 'wrong' in the UK: immigration, benefits, access to NHS, ID theft <...>.

For most countries that have them, ID cards are a legal requirement. Driving licenses are an optional luxury.

 

And the holder has a personal duty to maintain the address on the card current.

 

It will take much much much more than ID cards to fix whats broken L00b.

[L00b]

It will take much much much more than ID cards to fix whats broken L00b.

Oh I agree.

 

But I'd argue that it would be a common cornerstone of the many solutions required.

 

The fundamental fact is, it's just far too easy to exist 'outside the system' (or even, for the more enterprising/ingenious types, to exist distinctly in multiple places therein) and game it in this country (and getting ever more so in the digital age), when the multifarious strands of the government and public services cannot easily, quickly and cheaply cross-check each other's info through a common 'indexing' reference.

 

I'll spare you the horrors my wife came across when she was SIA-vetting security job applicants (which entails background checks of a similar level of due diligence as would be carried out for an ID card).

Edited October 30, 2017 by L00b

[apelike]

I think it was well upwards of £28.

 

Probably right with that as a passport costs £72 ATM

---------- Post added 30-10-2017 at 13:25 ----------

 

It will take much much much more than ID cards to fix whats broken L00b.

 

ID card are probably more necessary in the EU because of the border policy but in the UK a NI number is also a good way of checking ID. Its needed for the NHS, Benefits, Tax and immigration. And without quoting all of L00b's post, I though the NI number was used as an easy way of cross checking between government departments?

Edited October 30, 2017 by apelike

[L00b]

And without quoting all of L00b's post, I though the NI number was used as an easy way of cross checking between government departments?

It is between some, and accurate enough when the applicant for [benefit/NHS/position/etc.] is always the one and same individual, moreover with a side helping of further evidence of ID.

 

But NI cards don't have a photo, nor a perma-address, and it's easy enough to game the system (ad hoc) on the basis of an NI number alone, when you have the same ethnic background, age and gender (ref. my comment about SIA vetting, wherein many instances found of Middle eastern/Asian job applicants sharing the same first & family name and NI number, but different addresses and physically different at interviews. Details were forwarded to the HO, no idea what happened afterwards, not the company's job to enforce immigration law/rules - I suspect, very little).

 

Btw, for the little story, acc. to Wiki the NI Register and numbers stem from the ww2 UK ID card system that was killed off in 1952