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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

That's not the case in the UK - we don't have any single government issued identity document/card that everyone has to have.

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The UK is a special case and will not be "Europe" for long besides. Homogenisation of rules can take a while, especially when there is a cultural aversion to them. In this case I'd say there simply has not been enough time for this to happen.

Barring a rather spectacular feat of engineering, the UK won't be relocating itself from Europe any time soon (much to the chagrin of those who seem to want to plonk us next to Singapore ...)

England will not be less a part of Europe just because she leaves the EU. The EU was never perfectly cohesive to start with [0], and is made up of extremely disparate nations and cultures. Plus, England never adopted the Euro (which is probably for good reason, seeing as interest rates are now even further down because the ECB can't properly conduct monetary policy).

The EU was never comparable to, say, America in terms of unity. Europe had too much history for it to work perfectly - every one was on what had been at some point some one else's land.

[0] https://europedirectemn.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/treaties...

"The EU was never perfectly cohesive to start with"

You could say that about the UK - which lost a significant chunk last century and could well lose rather more this century.

Ireland also does not have mandatory ID, nor do the Nordic countries. I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it out to be.

The Irish (PSC) Public Services Card is getting close to being a de facto ID card at this point.

Agreed - it's turned out to be a privacy and security fiasco. Hopefully, the ICCL challenges will put an end to it.

But your identity is verified through some means when opening an account, even if there is no unique document, no?

Example https://www.tsb.co.uk/current-accounts/faqs/identity/

Yes it is. Electoral roll.

For which to get on you need an address to live at. For which to get one, you need a bank account (at least, but in 99.9% cases this alone is not enough), otherwise no agency is going to give rent you a house.

> For which to get on you need an address to live at. For which to get one, you need a bank account (at least, but in 99.9% cases this alone is not enough), otherwise no agency is going to give rent you a house.

At what age do you become eligible for the electoral roll? At least in the states most people register to vote before they leave the house of their parents.

Can't find a quick answer on gov.uk, but I somewhat loosely recall that they let you register when you're 16.

One of many basic cultural differences between the UK and the EU. In the EU you must give up your biometrics (fingerprint) by law. Doesn't surprise me that they are leaving.

> In the EU you must give up your biometrics (fingerprint) by law

Generic and incorrect statement

Also, I'm not an UK citizen and I'm forced to give up my biometrics (face) whenever flying out of an UK airport. Or when flying into the US.

Please show which law this is, I've never had to give my biometrics to anyone but the US government when visiting there.

All the UK passports and non-national resident ID cards are facial biometric.

I think surveillance techniques and invasion of privacy are often spearheaded by the UK. I remember the CCTV cameras where everywhere long before other countries leveraged them at that scale.

Then great for the EU. God willing, y'all will roll back some of that stuff if she leaves.

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