[renaudg]

The problem may have more to do with Uganda and having a surveillance state than it has to do with National ID cards.

Most European countries have them and they are as uncontroversial as passports.

Countries without national ID cards are not especially more privacy minded : for the purpose of identity verification they just use alternative documents & processes that are less straightforward and at least as intrusive (e.g. driving licenses, utility bills and credit checks in the US and UK).

IMO it's much more honest to recognize that there's a legitimate need to be able to prove one's identity in a functioning society, and to build a dedicated system for that, instead of tying your existence as a citizen to your ability / willingness to drive a large piece of metal around.

[abdullahkhalids]

I don't see any example in the article, in which some bad action by the Ugandan government could only have been done due to the existence of the national ID card.

The core problem is digitization. Once you have people's activity in digital form, it only takes a couple of dozen bits to super uniquely identify every person in the country. ID cards just formalize that.

[viraptor]

On the other hand, have you ever tried to do something even slightly unusual with paper documentation? It's not just convenient to have it digitised, it's close to necessary unless you want to spend months of your life chasing (for example) the right way to translate and certify the validity of an entry of your change of name in an old printed volume of The Gazette in the UK. Because they had a "YOLO, just let the solicitor know you changed your name, or not, who cares" system.

[surfingdino]

Digitisation is also problematic from the pint of view of tampering with data. It was more difficult to falsify or destroy evidence when it was mostly physical, it is trivial to do it when you are dealing with 1s and 0s.

[mattmaroon]

The US functionally has it. Your driver’s license goes into a national database, as do your license plates and social security number. I can drive through Oklahoma (several states away) and their system will automatically read my plates at a toll road and a bill will arrive at my home.

Our licenses now need a federal registration for us to board a plane. I think states have dropped issuing the ones that don’t.

The NSA probably has everyone’s cell number, text messages, and metadata (including location) stored.

With tech being what it is these days anonymity doesn’t exist.

[notepad0x90]

Think of the basic needs of a human being. Buying food and water, paying for shelter and living in a safe environment. For these things, proving one's identity should not be required, nor should a person be required to do business with a 3rd party (banks and credit cards) or have their activity tracked and surveilled. A person's right to exist and to pursue continued existence is inalienable and beyond the authority of a government or society to regulate.

Other things like transportation, certain types of employment and participation in government, I can see why a national id would be required for those.

Does the government (any government) have the authority to require identity proof from a person, simply because that person exists?

[rootusrootus]

> I think states have dropped issuing the ones that don’t.

Some have. Oregon, as a single example, will let you opt for a non-Real ID card.

[Spooky23]

We have it explicitly as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_passport_card

[soco]

From what the comments added to this, I would say the best (only?) privacy-favoring aspect in the States is that personal identification is in chaos. Not that you wouldn't have some identification features, but every little corner handles them differently. Nevertheless, the security organs seem to have found effective ways around this chaos, so I'd say that with or without national ID those who need to know know, and the only ones left in chaos are the regular people.

[seethishat]

How much storage would you need to store every text message ever sent by everyone on earth indefinitely? Has anyone done the math on that? I'm not sure it's possible without some infinite storage system (that obviously does not exist).

[lotsofpulp]

> I can drive through Oklahoma (several states away) and their system will automatically read my plates at a toll road and a bill will arrive at my home.

I’ve driven a car with USA license plates through tolls in Canada and gotten a bill at home.

Also, passports have existed forever.

[blendergeek]

> I think states have dropped issuing the ones that don’t.

A lot of states still issue the non-federal ones. They are much cheaper and easier to obtain (at least where I live).

[skissane]

> Countries without national ID cards are not especially more privacy minded

Australia tried to introduce a national ID card in the 1980s but the concerns over privacy made the idea so politically unpalatable that the government had to kill it

But in practice, for most Australian adults, your drivers license de facto functions as a national ID card. And with modern computer databases, data matching, identity verification APIs (which governments make available to trusted private businesses such as financial institutions) - the privacy benefits of dividing your identity across multiple purpose-specific ID cards vs a single generic one are arguably more theoretical than real.

Plus, Australia is far from being a poster child for privacy, especially as far as privacy intrusions by the government go. (It arguably does somewhat better for those done by the private sector - the AU government’s messaging to corporations who wish to invade its citizen’s privacy is very much we can, you can’t)

[gerdesj]

Feel free to substitute UK for Australia for your entire comment! I remember my mum getting a shitty on about ID cards in the UK back the '80s. We were living in West Germany at the time and the locals had them. The debate in the UK was ... desultory.

I can't speak for other members of the Commonwealth but I'm sure there will be similar stories.

As you say we all have a de-facto ID cards via driving licenses and/or passports. On the bright side, I don't fear for my life describing this state of affairs ... yet 8)

[solatic]

It's similar in many ways to "leaderless" organizations: getting rid of people with formal management titles doesn't mean you don't have managers, it means that it's not clear who the leaders are and that it's impossible for the organization to guarantee an orderly transfer of leadership when the shadow leaders eventually leave.

"Identity-less" societies are the same. You don't actually guarantee privacy, you just shunt the need to prove identity onto systems that are less suitable for the task (like driver's licenses and Social Security numbers), with less transparency and portability as a result. So where, exactly, is the utility in the collective lie?

[mrguyorama]

Also, this is very very important for people in the US to realize: Not having a "Social credit score" bureau doesn't mean the US doesn't have a social credit score! It only means the US government has to pay market rate for the service!

This is true for a lot of things the US allegedly "doesn't have", including domestic surveillance.

To ACTUALLY not have a social credit score system in the US, you MUST make even attempting to collect the necessary data so legally radioactive that most businesses are afraid to ask for birth dates, and keep voting out any politician that doesn't push for aggressive enforcement

[jauntywundrkind]

Show me a government that's lasted through hundreds of years of responsible careful balanced governance.

It's just so stupid to trust governments. They won't be the same government in a couple years, in most places in the world. (Gods fear those who do remain static & fixed!) The temptation to legislate, to start saving the children or hunting terrorists by becoming a police state is a temptation that should never ever be technologically open.

[rdlw]

The fact that a system may become perverted in the next several hundred years doesn't make it not worth using. Best of luck to my children's children, I hope they don't fuck it up too bad, but I'm not going to preemptively save them by not giving anyone power to govern in the present day.

[solatic]

It's a tool. Technology is neither positive, nor negative, nor neutral, it simply is. You might as well claim that banning guns will solve social violence and nobody will murder anybody anymore. The key is not to try to ban the tools (a deceptively alluring easy fix) but to fix the social ills (much harder).

[archsurface]

Not just the purpose of identity verification - identity verification at any time, anywhere, whatever you're doing.

[nkrisc]

> tying your existence as a citizen to your ability / willingness to drive a large piece of metal around.

Even in the US it’s not. I don’t know of a state where you can’t get a state identification card that has nothing to do with being licensed to operate a motor vehicle.

[wkat4242]

> a state identification card that has nothing to do with being licensed to operate a motor vehicle

Of course in a car-centric society as the US you could argue how optional that is :)

[mytailorisrich]

> Most European countries have them and they are as uncontroversial as passports.

> Countries without national ID cards are not especially more privacy minded

Two interesting things here: They are uncontroversial because people are so used to them and, yes, the UK is much more privacy minded than, e.g., France in that regards.

In France everyone is used to carry their ID card with them (ID cards include the person's address and finger print is taken when ID card is used to anyone older than 13). Police have the right to ask for proof of ID without cause, and failure give them the right to detain the person until ID can be assertained (which means being driven to the police station). The history od ID cards in France is indeed one of state surveillance and control, and, tellingly ID cards became mandatory under the Vichy government in 1940 and although they have no longer been so in law since 1955, they de facto still are in daily life.

In the UK people are free to go about their lives with no ID and the police have no right to stop and ask someone to identify themselves (or any other questions) without cause. There is a big resistance against creating ID cards.

I read other comments that in the UK driving licences are de facto ID cards but I think this misses the point above. Of course they are situations in daily life when one needs to prove their ID (banks, etc). But the point is protection against the state/authorities and against being forced to identify yourself for no imperative reason.

[Barrin92]

>In the UK people are free to go about their lives with no ID

That's because the surveillance creeps in sideways. I believe it was Lee Kuan Yew who once stated that a 'vertical' strong government where duties between citizens and the state are explicit and clearly defined is much more rights preserving than a weak, 'horizontal' government, where you don't have to show your id but then the police goes and buys all your private information from the gray market private sector a la ClearView AI and sends it two the fifteen three letter agencies. It's no accident that the US, UK, AUS etc. are some of the leaders in this gray zone, intelligence, mission creep.

[renaudg]

I'm French and live in the UK, so feel qualified to compare. A few examples off the top of my head :

The UK census and most NHS health records include ethnicity and religion data. In France it's forbidden by law for any entity to collect this information.

Any idiot in the UK (including direct marketing firms) can purchase the electoral register which has a wealth of personal data. You can opt out of one version, but not from the one that political parties, election officials or private credit agencies (!) have full unfettered access to.

Credit agencies, by the way, don't exist at all in France.

I think this qualifies the UK as "not especially more privacy minded", for at least some definitions of privacy.

[GeoAtreides]

>n the UK people are free to go about their lives with no ID and the police have no right to stop and ask someone to identify themselves (or any other questions) without cause.

Anyone who has watch police auditors in the uk knows how true that "no right to stop" actually is. They'll invoke Section 43 in 5 minutes top and detain you. They'll find something suspicious and detain you; they'll lie and forget to mention you don't have to id yourself.

Only people that haven't interacted with the police think that because there are no explicit laws requiring ID then the police can't actually ID them. Especially in the authoritarian UK.

[zabzonk]

practically impossible to do anything financially in the UK today without photo id (passport, driving license). this is supposed to prevent money laundering, but i suspect general control freakery.

[aaa_aaa]

A society can work without a centralized id system. Carry your id, save copies in a vault for verification if you want. Current id systems are just tools for surveillance and control, sugar coated with state welfare.

[viraptor]

What do you mean without a centralised id system? Whose id are you going to carry then? How many entities will you end up with issuing them? How many types will an arbitrary place that needs to check your id accept?

[mrtksn]

Ah yes, in UK/USA they like to think that they have their privacy protected and fighting the overreaching government by not having a national ID cards and then go ahead and build giant surveillance agencies that spy on them all the time.

It's very weird IMHO. It just creates a lot of headache for the illusion of it, yet I like the attitude. The attitude is important because it defines the expectations from the government.

Another country where I have living experience is Turkey and Turkey has kick-ass ID system and consolidated online government services. Although its very convenient, it makes you feel like living in a boarding school. You can't do anything without providing your national ID number. Kid you not, they are implementing centralised package tracking system, the companies doing deliveries are required to report every package so the government knows who send stuff to whom at any given time. It's crazy, you feel watched all the time but its alright because the society is already collectivistic and the Turkish attitude expect that kind of control.

Bulgaria on the other hand, another country where I have living experience, does have ID system and used to employ national identity number since the communists days feels as free or even more free than UK. In Bulgaria, the government actually doesn't know where you are or what are you up to. When you have some governmental stuff to do you show up with your national ID card.

[dfawcus]

In the UK, it has little to do with privacy per-se, but that we know they will be abused. That being part of the national character which rears is ugly little head from time to time.

We kept ID cards after the end of WW2 for a period, until some time in the 50s. They were finally scrapped when a car driver rejected a police demand to see his ID card, and the court case backed him. Parliament got rid of them some time later.

Ever since successive governments (of all flavours) have wanted to bring them back, it seems there is an institutional desire for them amongst the mandarins of the civil service.

Finally the prior Labour government brought them back in 2006, but the subsequent 2010 coalition government scrapped them. Every party bar Labour had promised to scrap them in their manifestos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006

So I'd not be surprised if our current GE led to another Labour government, and they brought the ID cards back.

At the time, and currently for some (i.e. me) a driving licence was a different document, without a photo. One which one is not obliged to carry while driving.

[yencabulator]

> the companies doing deliveries are required to report every package so the government knows who send stuff to whom at any given time

I would be genuinely surprised if this was not true of every current day "western" society.

United Stated Postal Service takes, stores, OCRs & shares with law enforcement photos of the cover of every letter you receive.

[sjducb]

Occasionally a bad government will come along.

When the bad government tries to do the bad things it will use the tools it has to hand.

If there is a national ID card system that is required for daily life then it is much easier for the baddies to take control of the population.

You can see this in WW2 when the Nazis took control. The Netherlands was twice as effective at killing Jews than France. This is because the Netherlands had good record keeping and already knew who the Jewish people were.

Hundreds of thousands of French Jews survived because France did not have a pre-existing population tracking system. The Nazis had to build one from scratch and that took time, giving French Jews time to run and hide.

This is why a friend of mine refused to tell our local supermarket that she wants kosher food.

[admissionsguy]

When I was growing up in Poland, I found it ironic that the national ID card system in Poland had been introduced by the Nazi occupants and then preserved out of convenience.

When I lived in the UK, I found the lack of ID cards liberating, especially associated with the lack of mandatory reporting to the central government of your every address.

I now live in Sweden and the degree of centralisation and digitisation is scary. The current and foreseeable governments are wonderful by Western standards, but isn't it inevitable that darker times will come at some point?

[yencabulator]

The thing that gets ridiculous is Americans trying to argue that storing (state, state_local_driver_license_number) is somehow different than storing (federal_driver_license_number).

[junto]

Fun fact. Post-Nazi Germany recognized that centralized records storage was one of the main reasons a rogue state had been able to target Jews, “undesirables, and bohemians (woke) during the holocaust.

As a result the modern ID card system and citizen registration is decentralized by design. When you move between two Bundeslände (states), your records are digitally transferred. They may not under any circumstances exist in two. They get held in a kind of digital holding state during the transfer.

Post-Nazi Germany is one of the most privacy conscious nations I’ve ever seen. Germans still largely insist of the privacy on cold hard cash. Credit card uptake is still vastly lower than neighboring countries. Privacy laws are stringent and well defined. Usage of dashcams and ring cameras are challenging to keep legal.

I trust the German state more with an ID card system than I would the UK for example. British citizens have long given up their rights meekly to be spied on by their government and the UK government has a poor record of safely delivering well designed large IT projects.

[longerd2]

We had smart eIDs with proper PGP once :')

[olyjohn]

I'm every state that I am aware of, you can get and ID card that is not a drivers license. So it's not really got anything to do with driving.

[t0bia_s]

E-shops are good proof of working system without need of identify yourself by ID. Your could order anything by fake name on fake adress and waste time and money of delivery system, yet it is not happening.

Btw, ID's was mandatory first time by Hitler during WWII.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card