Lion in Winter

Yes, I had family who remembered those. My uncle was one (he was also a navigator on the North Atlantic convoys, who later became a schoolmaster teaching Latin and Greek - what a mixture). Anyway, after the war he used to refuse to carry any id, including his driving license, on point of principle. He used to get stopped by police off and on because he had a theory that speedometers on cars were set to record 10mph more than they were actually going, in order to make the customer happier. So he would get stopped for speeding, and he never had his license on him. He would always pointedly attend the police station to show that he had a license within the required number of days

Former Lancastrian

Hi Sir how can I help you?
I left my bank cards at home and desperately need some money but I can give you my account number and details.
Do you have any ID on you?
No?
So how could I verify that the account number you gave me for this account is actually you?
Because I can tell you the name on the account and other details you might require.
Granted but how do I know it is your account?
Because I am giving you details.
But you have no ID on you that I can validate and confirm your name?
Stop being a ****ing jobsworth and give me some money.
Sorry Sir cant do that as I don't know who you are.
I have told you who I am and my account number what more do you want?
Well some form of ID might assist me in verifying who you are and that the account belongs to you.
Oh **** off I will try another branch.
You have a nice day Sir.

DaveLovesDee

Currently, in order to speak to someone about my account, I just produce my bank card and enter my PIN. Neirher of which actually proves I'm who I say I am, but allows me to change my address on the accounts.

Having a copy of my ID card on file would help.

BristolUK

I realise this is a waste of time but I'm going to have one final waste of time.
It's common that you bring India to many topics. It's common that people point this out frequently.

Everybody here has ties to more than one country but nobody brings one country to a debate and then argues about it as consistently as you. You did it here as mentioned and a couple of days ago there was a mini discussion on Chicago and tall buildings. Your input was to mention the tallest statue in the world is in India.
Of course you will once again explain this "but it was a thread about statues" - it wasn't. It was a thread about objectionable statues, not tall ones, and then it had a minor diversion about buildings.

More relevant would have been where the tallest building was.

Peace.

BristolUK

Have you had a conversation like that?
I remember back in the days of cheque guarantee cards but before I decided to get one, if I went to a different branch, they would phone the main branch to check if I had the appropriate balance and then give me the money with no ID.

In more recent times I have satisfied banks about who I am by being able to tell them details of standing orders, last withdrawals, deposits etc.

Did they not like your accent?

Former Lancastrian

Even with a fraudulent identity document you ask yourself was it worth it?

Convicted on a drug charge, Michael Mvogo languished in jail for almost a decade. He entered the country on a fraudulent passport and it took years for the Canadian Border Services Agency to confirm his identity, in order to deport him. Mike Drolet reports.

https://globalnews.ca/news/2185233/m...canada-source/

or this one when you refuse to identify yourself to a member of the Immigration & Refugee Board of Canada

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ne...prison-311096/

There again be thankful not are all like the US Immigration Customs Enforcement

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...htmlstory.html

Steerpike

I've seen it mentioned elsewhere that you don't have to carry a drivers license, but if you don't, and you are stopped, you may be required to produce it at a police station within 3 days. This seems rather silly to me. Let's say you stole a car, but the theft has not been reported yet. You are pulled over for speeding or similar. You don't have a license on you, so you are let go with an instruction to present the license within 3 days at the station. You obviously don't do so, since you nicked the car, and since the car wasn't yours to begin with, tracking you down with the vehicle ownership records doesn't do them any good and a crime essentially goes unsolved.

Or let's say there is an act of violence - someone is beaten up and several witnesses say the perpetrator was a 'white male in his 30s'. You are a white male in your 30s and you are seen leaving the area. The police stop you and question you; they don't have enough suspicion to detain you, but would like to get your details so they can follow up with their inquiries at a later time. If you don't have ID on you, then they have to take your word for it, and this fact may compel them to 'bring you in' because they can't risk letting you go, not knowing for sure who you are. So by not carrying ID, you are causing the police more work and causing yourself considerable inconvenience.

With the UK being an Island without a serious 'land border', I realize that this final scenario is less likely but I would imagine the concept may apply if people attempt to enter the UK illegally by boat. In the US, there are a good number of people who cross the US/Mexico border illegally. There are roaming 'Border Patrol' officers near the border, and they stop people fairly regularly on suspicion that you have entered the country illegally. If they stop you and you don't have ID, what recourse do they have other than to detain you in order to verify your identity? This is a very real issue for me as I travel from AZ to CA all the time and there are Border Patrol checkpoints set up at random. I don't carry my US Passport but I do carry my Drivers License, and I have to hope they accept that as proof of my right to reside in the US (since CA gives drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, this has become a real issue and the only reason I don't worry too much about it is that I'm a white male over 60, so I don't fit the demographic for a typical illegal immigrant).

The argument against this is that there are many people who don't drive, and who don't have passports (this comes up in the US all the time in the context of voter identification).

I presume the obvious reason for adding some elements of biometrics is to prevent forgery. These days, printing a 'card' is a piece of cake for any serious forger. Thus, having a card that has a photo and other details would be next-to-useless from a 'proof' perspective. Adding biometrics is done, I presume, to make forgery that much harder. If the card contains encoded electronic information that can be read by some proprietary device, this acts as a cross-check to validate the authenticity of the card. Other than this 'authenticity' element, I can't see any reason for (nor objection against) having biometric information there.

Bipat

1) All discuss the country where they are expats. This is an expat Forum.
The fact that some people object regarding only this country surely illustrates a narrow interest in just 'white' countries apart from one OP who mentions Japan.

Above I was answering an OP with a specific question regarding ID cards ---and whether people object if too many details on card ----I gave a specific example of court cases arising from this.

2) The thread was regarding 'statues' ---post 100---an OP mentioned China, Dubai, Qatar----I pointed out the tallest and impending one even taller. Another poster replied in a normal conversational way.

(As I criticised those I mentioned and pointed out many found them objectionable --I presumed my remarks would be acceptable.)

I have certainly learned not to praise anything about the place.

Bipat

A report on EU News/ 24/7
The reports alternate between deal and no-deal!

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/hopes-...-europe/91198/

Red Eric

That's satire, I presume?

macliam

Can't they afford someone based in the UK?

Red Eric

My objection isn't to to the use of biometric data per se.

I haven't any objection, for example, to the comparison between photo and actual face when passing through a security or immigration check.

What I find unacceptable is the idea that any of what is taken for the purposes of id cards or passports be stored and potentially used for other purposes. So I wouldn't like, for example, to think that my name and address could be pulled out of a database because my face is seen somewhere in a public space. And I definitely don't like the idea that the same could be done with fingerprints I may have left anywhere in my wake. Others have said "so what? I carry my fingerprints on me" but you don't normally have them stored for comparison unless you're a known criminal.

BristolUK

No, as stated it was a thread about objectionable statues and whether they should be in a museum.

You see? I knew it was a waste of time.

DaveLovesDee

There are already people concerned that facial-recognition cameras already pull up your details when they see you, but factually, that's only true if your picture is scanned into the camera database bý Police. Facial-recognition tends to be used by Police in areas of lots of people, and where there's a high risk of crime, such as football matches. At football matches, images of people known to be banned from attending would be loaded onto the system to help identify them and prevent them from causing issues. Local warrants and wanteds would also be in the system. The other 99.9% of matchgoers wouldn't even come up on the screens.

It's easy enough for me or anyone else to get someone's fingerprints just by grabbing their coffee cups from whichever bin they dump their cup in, and it's not difficult to buy a fingerprint kit online.

But for ID cards, if your fingerprints were held on a chip, only the Police would need to access them and only under limited circumstances. And which should be done at a Police station.

DigitalGhost

Realistically there is no reason for the ID card to contain your fingerprints. A simple name, DOB etc and a relatively recent photo (i.e. 10 years old or less) should be sufficient.