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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

> I walk around with no form of ID and only bring it when I’m expecting to need it

May I ask why? Is it of inconvenient size, do you not like to carry baggage that you do not need most of the time or is it just that you do not want to be easily identifiable most of the time?

The German "Personalausweis" (official id card, distinct from passports) is sized and shaped like a credit card and therefore easily goes into the wallet. We used to have larger ones in the past which indeed did not fit into some wallets. It is also very convenient to have it on you to be able to identify yourself in whatever situation.

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> identify yourself in whatever situation

What situation? Other than crossing a border, or maybe appearing in court, I can't think of any situation where I need to prove who I am. I might need to prove my age, or that I have a right to a particular service, but I shouldn't need to provide my identity to do that.

That's how it works here?

Here, you can pick up packages that the postman couldn't deliver (because nobody was home at the time) at the supermarket/gas station. They require you to identify yourself of course. This is the main reason I need it these days.

During the lockdown, I let my library account expire and expect to sign up again one of these days when I am in the area. I would hate if I actually had to plan to take my id with me for such a thing.

When I was a student, I participated in surveys. To prevent people participating more than once (you were reimbursed for the time spent there) they required you to identify yourself.

The advantage of carrying a credit card sized id in my wallet all the time outweighs the disadvantages of not doing it (which is pretty easy because I think there are none) which is why I am suprised when someone does not.

> They require you to identify yourself of course.

That's unnecessary; all they need is to know that you have the right to collect the parcel. This can be done with a QR code generated by the sender, potentially alongside proof of address.

> I let my library account expire [...]

Proof of address, again, to show that you're a local resident and thereby entitled to the service. Why does a library need to know who you are?

> When I was a student, I participated in surveys [...]

That's a valid use of identity, yes. However, it's unnecessary for the survey company themselves to receive your identity; a trusted intermediary could hash your id number together with a salt provided by the survey company.

> the disadvantages of doing it

If you carry it the whole time, persons in authority (or not in authority) will get used to being able to demand or request it, which has a corrosive effect on privacy and civil liberty.

I don’t carry a wallet anymore. I typically leave the house with just my phone, Apple Watch and sometimes AirPods. That covers almost everything I need. I just find a wallet to be very bulky while I almost never need it.

I’m technically identifiable by holding the button on my watch or the medical id button on my watch. I’m just not legally identifiable.

This maybe takes “identifying as an Apple user” a bridge too far!

And really, who’s going to know (how) to do that, especially in an emergency? It also relies on either your phone or watch surviving an accident intact. It’s your life, but it’s just going to frustrate identification attempts when it’s important.

A wallet doesn’t have to be bulky a to hold a couple of cards or a few slips of paper. I have a cardholder which is much more minimal and compact than a standard wallet, and even Apple makes cardholders that attach to the back of MagSafe phones now.

I would hope that in this situation, a persons first response would be to call for professional help. And the medical professionals would know how to access it (it shows a button labeled “emergency” on the home screen if it scans a face not of the owner).

When my phone was lost once, it was dropped off at the police station and they opened the emergency access screen to call someone to get the phone returned. So it’s not completely unknown.

Who is going to know about a default-on user-facing feature in one of the most popular mobile operating systems in the world? Did you really just ask that?

> to identify yourself in whatever situation.

Not OP but I'm in the UK, (and lived in Ireland before this) and I carry my drivers license in my wallet because it fits, but I have _never_ needed it for a situation other than buying alcohol when I was ~19/20. What situations are there that I would need to identify myself?

Hmm, mostly I use my driver's license when I pick up packages from post office. Or open a contract and like. Other thing is as customer reward cards in certain shop as it contains national ID number.

Funny thing is that driver's license is not official identification document here in Finland. Only passport and id card are...

IDs or passports are a pain to replace, much more than a phone or a set of keys (for which you can keep spares in advance).

The French ID cards are still the old format, it doesn't fit into a small wallet. So I almost never take it around.

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