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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true.

You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card.

I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay.

My driving licence stays at home. If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code.

I can pick up a parcel by showing some non-ID like a bank card, utility bill, etc.

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> If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code.

The GP comment said "driving a car," not hiring one. It's not clear to me why you responded to a different assertion, and I can't find anything that supports the idea that you don't need to show a driving license while driving if it's requested.

https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ...

"If you do not have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days."

> You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card.

If I may be so bold, I think it's fairly reasonable to understand their comment (in the context of requiring ID) as referring to checking out/borrowing books from a library to read, rather than simply reading them in a library.

I don't need to show my licence to get in my car and drive. For any normal use of a car, there is no requirement to show a licence before doing so.

Have you ever applied for a library card? Most libraries will give you one without any verifiable form of ID. And the card itself certainly isn't ID.

> I don't need to show my licence to get in my car

It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it, and obviously you could not rent it (yes, code and blabla, it's just a proxy for it).

> Have you ever applied for a library card?

Yes, and in fact they were pretty fastidious with validating that I lived in the area they serve (that might be because I have a funny accent, but still). I don't remember how I managed to get it, eventually - likely with the usual utility bills, which here work exactly as ID would, as long as you have a pair of them. Their use for this is extremely problematic.

It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it

Did you definitely mean this? I have never had to present a driving license to buy a car. I don't see the link; the license isn't to own a car, it's to drive one. Unless you're thinking of places where one does need a license just to own a vehicle?

> You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days

Many people might also not know that it's against the law to carry a driving licence that is not perfectly up-to-date regarding your address details.

Coming from Italy, a country with strong ID card requirements (because of Napoleonic attitudes compounded by actual Fascism), the UK situation looks to me idealistic, naive, pragmatically disastrous, and only very occasionally safer (ID-card fraud in Italy is an actual problem the UK does not have, but the practice of validating identity with house bills in the UK is even more open to abuse). I expect we'll eventually get something that works like an ID card, looks like an ID card, but it's not called an ID card - possibly owned and operated by banks, who are the real authorities here.

As that link says, you do not need to routinely carry your driving licence in the UK even if driving. If stopped, you are required to give your name and address and police have the option of giving you a "presenter", a notice that you must turn up at a police station within 7 days with your licence (with some exceptions eg it's been stolen or with the DVLA for changes to be applied). But in my experience it's unusual to be given one of these.

By the same token, you don't show your id to buy groceries, or your license to enter a party. Gattaca was a dystopia, not a goal.

I've never had to show any ID to buy groceries. Not sure what point you're making.

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