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Comment by c_plus_minus | Hacker News Reader

"A proposition for a standard digital signature in every EU citizen's identity card. .... No extra cards - it will just replace your existing ID card when it expires"

Well unlike most of the continent, Britain and Ireland have no mandatory I.D. card (thankfully) so this doesn't cover the whole EU...

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I allways wondered about the aversion to id-cards. Doubly when I heard the story about catch-22 style schenigans I heard you need to go through in GB, if you want to open a bank account, and rent a flat at the same time (or so I heard, that most of the time bank accepts as proof of identity utility bills from place where you live, and landlord accepts similarily a proof of existence of a bank account) ... in czech republic I just show them my id card, and everyybody is hapy. I could even pay a little bit extra to have digital signature embedded, which would allow me to fill my taxes via web ...

Why the "thankfully"? I'm in a country where the ID card is mandatory and don't see any problem with it. Can you enlighten me?

You need to be wearing a tinfoil hat to understand.

I wear a tinfoil hat because governments have a history of abusing their powers. Although we live in steady and somewhat well-governed democracies, there's no guarantee that this will always be the case.

I don't see the need to have mandatory ID. The thought of being fined for not "showing my papers" while walking down the street is disturbing.

Can't speak for the UK, but I think a lot of the resistance to the idea in Ireland is due to a long history of distrust of the authorities.

> The thought of being fined for not "showing my papers" while walking down the street is disturbing.

Having a ID card does not imply that authorities have right to inspect it at will, or that you are required to carry it with you at all times.

That why I said "mandatory"...

Definitely the same in the UK. It's likely the death of Blair/Brown's <s>citizen tracking</s>ID card scheme killed the idea for other countries considering one.

A lot of things end up being tied to your ID number, and it becomes very difficult to limit the collaboration of companies to create a dataset about you, never mind making it easier for the Government to track people en masse.

I'll have to break it to you then: it's exceedingly easy to get the same use of data without an ID. The lack of national ID does not protect your privacy.

Yep, FB and twitter doesn't need your national ID card number to know more about you than your spouse does

I said easier, not foolproof. Just a postcode and some other piece of data is often enough to tie a record to an identity.

There's a difference between possible and building a system specifically to help it happen.

The feeling of protection hinges on how easy it is. A bit over ten years ago I was working in database "cleaning": merging databases from different organizations[1] into one coherent dataset. The data volumes were large, but other than that it is a simple task with low error rates and one which absolutely does not need global unique IDs.

This was ten years ago. The task only got easier since then.

On the flip side, the lack of national ID has inconveniences. How do you authenticate yourself when selling your house?

[1] Ethical work. These were needed either after mergers or because of the MS Access syndrome, where every department designed their own customer database.

Lack of ID card doesn't stop UK to share all your data with private companies, like in case of care.data and now also HMRC data. I never felt as tracked as in UK, where all companies know where I live and lived for last several yers.

On the other hand in Poland we do have mandatory ID card, and companies still don't have that much access to your data.

Same issue as with SSN in the USA. Lots of things requesting it what should not ever have access to it, opening people up to everything from privacy intrusion to identity fraud.

Case in point: HMRC (UK Taxman) is about to sell 'anonymized' taxpayer data. With enough 'anonymized' data-dumps and CPU power, at some point, it will become trivial to correlate an ID Card ID with datapoints.

No. Read about anonymous credentials ;)

I actually think it's the other way round.

I actually think the other way.

In countries where you have ID card, you just show it to confirm your identity and you're done.

In UK you need to bring your bank statement and utility bills, with your address. Combined with your date of birth, it makes it much easier to match with companies database.

U'll join in with the chorus and point out that this point of view is an outdated relic of the national identity card debates of the 80s and 90s. Back then it was possible to imagine a world where we weren't tracked permanently. With the advent of ubiquitous mobile phones, the Web (with cookies!), public transport electronic passes, license plate readers for cars, face recognition linked with CCTV networks, that era has gone. In my opinion, if we can't have privacy, then we should at least get some of the potential benefits that are possible when privacy is removed, and national ID cards give you just that.

Finland doesn't have a mandatory ID card either, but you've been able to get an electronic ID like the one described for quite a while if you want one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626555

So the govt really doesn't have records about every citizen? (or you just don't have a physical Card against that record?)

It has tax records, which have a link to my NHS records. My tax number isn't used for anything aside from taxes, though, and only organisations which have to report tax-related information about me to the Government have it.

Since I don't really understand the local sentiment of the Irish and the British, I gotta ask, do the people think it's a good think that there isn't a central Primary Key to link all of their records together?

Yes. It makes it a little more fiddly for our Government to create a PRISM-like database of our offline lives.

So each govt body seems to have it's own persona of you. While I understand that this in some way supports privacy against the govt, but it just makes me wonder how they handle certain issues. off the top of my head:

Aren't your passport or driving license connected to your other persona's?

If someone gets arrested, wouldn't that be tied to some existing Primary Key? How else would you know past criminal records of a person?

Do all the bodies simply work on "Foreign Keys" since there is no central Primary Key? And if all records have each other's foreign keys, doesn't that defeat the purpose?

It sort of defeats the purpose, but because these are across organisational boundaries, it makes it rather more difficult for anyone to actually do anything with those links, and more expensive. A national ID system leads to a national database where much of this data would be much more accessible to the entire Government.

In my country, a lot of places use the National ID card (NIC) as a means of security. For example at a lot of office buildings or at "extra-secure" neighbourhoods (especially where military personnel live), they ask you to leave your NIC (or a copy of it) at the gate. So in case of an incident, they would have a record of who checked in and stuff.

Another security use case is in Banks. Since handwritten signatures are weak security, they usually ask you to attach a copy of your NIC when cashing/depositing cheques so they can trace the guy later in case of unlawful activity.

Yes yes, all above measures have loopholes but it's still security. I m just saying that ID cards aren't all bad. they have their uses.

My bank won't let me take money out without either my debit card or photo ID, so that's kinda moot.

A number of other things can be used as collateral, including, where absolutely necessary, a passport or drivers license.

There's no killer app, so to speak, for a national ID system that isn't solved today by voluntary means.

I thought UK wasn't part of EU in the first place.... (Hence it DOES cover all of EU, no?)

They are (for now). They are just not part of the Euro or Schengen.

No, they managed to have a say on Schengen without actually being supportive of it.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;jsessionid=y2...

> The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland shall participate in the following provisions of the Schengen acquis: (etc.)

It's a part of EU, it's not a part of the Eurozone though.

It's... complicated. See The European Union Explained* for how deep that rabbit hole is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O37yJBFRrfg

It's part of the EU, but not part of the common currency (Euro).

Ahem, Ireland is also a member of the EU!

I thought i covered Ireland under UK when I asked if it wasn't part of EU

EDIT: oh not all of Ireland is in UK. I honestly didn't know about "Republic of Ireland" being a standalone country

Ah that's ok. I think I've done my patriotic duty for the day by increasing knowledge of us :)

oooooh boy. Might want to do some research before your holiday to Belfast (or Derry).

Edit - I realize that came off snarky - it was meant lightheartedly. In all seriousness, though -

Republic of Ireland - a soverign nation of 26 counties. Split from the UK nearly a century ago. There's some interesting (but very painful) history behind that.

Northern Ireland - 6 counties at the northeast of the island

Ireland - a geographical entity (the island itself)

Ireland (or Eire) - the official name of the Republic

Great Britain - the island with England, Scotland, and Wales. Often used to refer to the UK (but this isn't completely accurate, if we're being pedantic it's a geographical, not political, term, and there's still Northern Ireland).

United Kingdom - England, Scotland (for now), Wales, and Northern Ireland

It would make sense for me to make an error in there, but I think I've got that right. Hope it's helpful!

Finally someone who chose to explain things instead of just bombing down votes. Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

And I'll just take solace in this (apparently) Scottish Proverb:

"He who asks is a fool for a moment. He who doesn't is a fool forever"

Ireland left the UK around 90 years ago.

The UK has been a member of the EU (or its predecessors) since 1973.

Correct. UK is the 51st state of The United States of America.

Wow. Down votes for not knowing that...

What a joke. So you have no DL, no passport, you don't have any bank accounts or credit cards, no internet account or phone account, no national health insurance account, and no address?

Thats great! Since you're not required to have an ID card then you can't be identified and your privacy is secure.

Also you're homeless, probably destitute and unable to live or participate in society.

No, UK citizens are not homeless. Neither are identity papers necessary for anything you listed. Go troll somewhere else.

Ok, since the subtle approach isn't working I'll spell it out for you in big letters:

ALL OF THOSE THINGS I LISTED WILL IDENTIFY YOU.

Having government ID is irrelevant.

They not necessary do. Yes, for most parts it irrelevant, but it increases the cost for the "attacker"

In the UK, one does not need government approval or permission to live in a house, so it's quite possible not to be homeless and also not to have government ID. Crazy times.

You miss my point entirely. If you have an address you have a unique identifier which is shared widely, usually publicly. You therefore you can be easily identified.

And do I need to present that address to interact with society? If a policeman stops me in the streets, can he demand to see my address for no reason at all? Is it now, or will it one day be illegal for me not to carry that address around with me?

The problem isn't that it's possible to identify people. This is something that can be done, for example, by looking at someone. The problem is in the relationship between the state and the citizen.

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