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Comment by kalininalex | Hacker News Reader

Albania, Argentina, Belarus... am I looking at the right list? OK, some first-world countries are mixed in there too, but the entire list is hardly a source of inspiration.

Many first world countries are absent from that list, as well as all developed Common Law countries (e.g. UK, Australia, Canada, etc). I don't think US should be on that list either. While a National ID is indeed not an instant tyranny, it may well be a step in that direction.

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The Australia Card cabinet document archives were recently declassified http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/cabinet/by-year/198...

One document conceeds "Surely this [laws mandating checks of people's ID cards] will be opposed by employers on the basis that it is not their duty to control entry into Australia" http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NAAMedia/ShowImage.asp?B=3142...

The project was eventually scrapped due to privacy concerns and swung so far that there are now laws preventing certain government agencies (Taxation/Immigration/Welfare/Health Insurance etc.) from doing JOIN on each others databases unless it's overseen by a third party http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-act/government-data-m... http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-act/medicare-and-phar...

I'm sure that having an id could make tyranny easier, but after moving from a country using ids to one without them, I see lots of very simple issues. Apparently just picking up my mail would enable someone to change/cancel my utilities. Or to start a credit in my name. Or to get my credit report. All without a single picture id. In my home country that would not be possible. Here, I'm told that having a bank statement letter or a utility bill is a way to prove your identity. To me as a developer that's just crazy.

To make it worse, common documents like European driving license are sometimes rejected because they don't have labels in local language (that's why field numbers always match up!!!). So that's it, I really don't get why people don't want a common id for their own benefit. Tyranny can be there with or without ids.

Yes - it is the case that most countries that implement National ID aren't first world, because most countries aren't first world. It's also the case that most first-world countries implement national ID. A list of countries with literacy rates over 80% would have a similar distribution.

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