[aacid]

You need ID to buy cigarettes and alcohol, prescription drugs or to get sim card... you will need it to register for social network account... do not seem as big of a deal to me. Even less when considering all the positives.

[gorgolo]

When I show my ID at the cash register I assume the person working there doesn’t instantaneously memorize all my details and then write down when exactly I was at the shop, along with other details, to use this info later for their own reasons.

Whereas if I upload my ID to a tech company (that potentially answers to both my own government and foreign governments, as well as having its own ad-related agenda) I am a bit less certain about what will happen to this data.

[ryandrake]

> Whereas if I upload my ID to a tech company (that potentially answers to both my own government and foreign governments, as well as having its own ad-related agenda) I am a bit less certain about what will happen to this data.

"A bit less certain" is a really mild way of putting it. I'd be confident that whatever ID I upload to the Internet is going to be stored forever, shared with "partner" companies, linked with as much data about me as those partner companies can find, and then eventually leaked in a security breach, resulting in the company issuing a press release telling everyone they "Take Security Very Seriously."

[bondarchuk]

Needing ID to buy a sim card was a big deal, though. Didn't seem like it because it seemed like we still had the internet for anonymous communication. That will be gone soon by the looks of it. Frog status: boiled.

[lossyalgo]

The problem is that they promise to delete IDs but then don't, and get hacked, and then all that personal information is published to the dark web for nefarious purposes. If you need evidence, it just happened again to 70,000 Discord users: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jmzd972leo

[uyzstvqs]

Showing ID at a store doesn't de-facto make a copy. They don't associate my full ID to the purchase, at most a manually entered DoB.

And if you're suggesting Digital ID (EUDI style); showing ID at the store doesn't share metadata of that purchase with the government.

[Markoff]

that's exactly my proposal with protecting children online - issue unique certificates for some symbolic price like 1EUR which will be sold over 18yo in shops exactly same as alcohol and cigarettes where nobody writes down your ID details, heck don't even have a look if you look old enough, that's as far as I am willing to go to protect kids (without this certificate) online, anything else is just internet deanonymization

[fipar]

When traveling abroad, it always surprises me when I’m asked for my id when buying alcohol. That’s only a thing in my country when you’re in the age bracket in which it’s risky to tell your age just by your looks, but after that, I haven’t been asked for my id since at least I’m 20 or 21 (drinking age is 18 here).

Prescription drugs are different because those are tied to your name anyway, and that’s why medical information has a different protection standard.

As a parent of 2 I think it’s better to talk to your kids, check what they’re up to, and, you know, be involved in their lives. Also, as a former kid, if there’s something they want to do but you don’t want them to: they’ll do it. Better that they know they can trust you to say “I still want to do X” than have to do it in hiding and without your support if anything goes wrong.

[tamimio]

I hope this is a satire post..

[donglong]

American here. it's a very big deal.

[kubb]

Thank you for your wisdom, oracle of freedom.

[rasz]

American American or 'American' with account registered in Nigeria/India using VPN to post on social media?

"How X's new location feature exposed big US politics accounts" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj38m11218xo

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/23/rightwing-in...

https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/x-just-accidentally-...

or maybe VPN using Canadian secessionist from Thailand?

https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2025/12/04/rage-or-real-exp...

For Europeans ID is not as big of a deal as losing democracy thru foreign influence manipulating public opinion on a massive scale.

[surgical_fire]

Then there's nothing for you here, you don't live in Spain.