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Boris Johnson turned away from polling station after forgetting to bring photo ID
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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I feel like there's a simple solution: Government issues free photo IDs to everyone, you need to pay for it if you destroy/lose it while it's still valid.
There was an ID card system in the works in the UK a few years ago, but it was scrapped. There was a lot of opposition to it ok the grounds of civil liberties and privacy.
There’s a lot of wariness about a “paper’s please” society in the country, there hasn’t been a national ID system since just after WW2. Driver’s licenses and passports are used a sort of substitute, but even the UK drivers license doesn’t have to be carried to actually drive.
The proposed ID card system was also attached to an identity database system that was considered to have a lot of features creep and be too invasive.
A free, simple ID card system would probably make a lot of sense (the existing drivers license system could be repurposed/expanded for it), but there’s just a lot of uneasiness about it among the British for better or worse.
That's where you guys draw the line? With automated facial recognition vans, CCTV everywhere, among other things, the UK is certainly not a country that comes to mind when I think "civil liberties and privacy".
To be fair when they say recently they mean about 20 years ago. It was the Blair government that were looking to do this when I was at school in the early 2000s.
France does this.