But those are largely proving your identity in a situation where you wish to identify yourself.
Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.
Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.
There's two components to this.
1. It's widely accepted because in most cases the cashier just glaces at the ID. How is the vaccine passport going to be implemented? Are they going to give you a laminated ID card, or is it going to be some QR code thingy on your phone? The latter would necessitate some sort machine scanner, which would mean it's trivially easy to turn this into some sort of a tracking system.
2. "being 18" isn't a medical intervention that's forced onto people.
The situation is likely different in the United States, but in Germany the youths solve this problem (under 16's/18's cannot buy alcohol) simply by the fact that always some friend has an older brother or sister.
Last time I booked a hotel via an app at the last minute for an overnight stay after going to the pub in a city away from home, the booking process didn't mention we needed to show our passports at reception. It was a new policy for that hotel.
When we went to the hotel, about midnight, of course we didn't have passports with us, why would we? It's not normal to take your passport when visiting a neighbouring city for a night out.
I've stayed at countless hotels, and never had this problem before. But I understand the UK is becoming more draconian so perhaps a rule had kicked in since the previous time I went to a hotel. But I had the impression, it was a recent policy change by this hotel, and "oh, we should update our website".
It was pouring with rain, there were no other hotels accepting bookings by then, and the last train home would be in a few hours. Our Uber had dropped us off, and hotel reception was telling us we had to go outside into to the pouring rain as we couldn't stay despite having paid.
They knew perfectly well who we were. It wasn't an identity thing. We were able to show booking numbers, credit cards, confirm emails, and other forms of identity. But not the type their new policy required.
They required every guest's passport, not just one person. As luck would have it, we each spent about an hour trawling through the contents on our electronic devices and online, and we each found images of our passports in some location or other because of the ubiquitous requests for photos of passports these days, and those photos were accepted by the hotel.
A few years back, I got in a tight situation. I had a last minute trip and, among other things, didn't grab the little travel folder which I have with backup ID, credit cards, etc.
Get my license out in the back of the car for TSA. Somehow I managed to lose it between there and the airport doors. Called the driver. They looked no luck. No idea what happened.
To my considerable surprise, the TSA let me fly with no real hassle. (Rules may have tightened.)
But when I got to the crappy Travelodge motel on the other side--no luck. I assume I would have had better luck at one of my regular chains but they didn't want to budge in spite of a wallet full of other cards and a photo company ID.
I wasn't sure where I was going to sleep but they eventually relented so long as I paid cash. Fortunately the cost was relatively low enough I was able to get enough of an ATM. (I didn't have photos on my phone.)
Airbnbs near SFO at San Mateo or Burlingame is just as expensive as hotels anyway!
But we're clearly accepting the idea of giving up way more information in the former case even though all that's needed is the boolean, so why the fuss around the vaccines when they're ultimately also after a boolean?
Online, this fight-or-flight response manifests as people downvoting you, flagging you, doxxing you, and so on for presenting hard-to-refuse facts and arguments contrary to any entrenched but incorrect narrative.
The problem is exacerbated on HN by high-karma accounts having the ability to flag discussions to death without engagement and essentially end them unilaterally.
Showing an ID to drink or get a senior discount isn’t about identifying you specifically just something about you and that is completely accepted by the general public. Show your military ID to get a discount is another.
The issue I take with such pedantic exceptions is they derail the thread.
Edit: This is a far more direct response which I upvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323
My two line "no, those things are different to this thing" is responding both directly to the thrust of the argument and with an appropriate amount of effort.
Saying X is usually Y, doesn’t actually mean showing ID to demonstrate an unrelated fact is somehow unusual.
My argument isn't that, there is no level of imprecision where I'd be satisfied. I went straight to the substance which is the examples listed are acceptable in ways that a vaccine mandate is not.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect proof that someone is who they say they are when picking up a parcel or borrowing a book in their own name. It isn't like it is information that they aren't implicitly volunteering as part of the transaction. Ditto ID for a hotel stay to an extent, the normal case for a hotel stay is you have already identified yourself to the hotel.
There is a fair comparison when it comes to drivers licenses (I echo Mr Mouse's argument there). But 25% relevant examples is not a good batting average. And it isn't pedantry to point that out, it is routine argumentativeness. The complaint against vaccine passports is people are being forced to reveal information about themselves that they may not want to. I don't want to have to start registering information about myself with the government to have a pub lunch; the risk for those systems to go bad is off the charts high.