[bayerrr]

As a German, you could not be more wrong with your idea about ID cards. ID cards are not used to track your movement. There is no need to show an ID to the police unless they have suspicion that you committed a crime and confront you. There are no passport controls along roads. There is a huge difference between the scales at which passport controls and CCTV can be executed, too, because passport controls require work by a police officer, whereas CCTV can be automated with face recognition. Our police is understaffed, too, you rarely see them.

Whenever you use your ID card it is to buy alcohol or enter a concert, and police do not check the ID, but an employee of the venue. The employees just check the date of birth if you look like a young person, and sometimes if the picture is matching your face.

[icc97]

I'm talking about when the police stop you. I live in Belgium and I've seen the oppressive stop and searches the police do on buses. They come on and haul people off.

You are required to have an ID on you at all times. If you don't have an ID on you you've committed an offence.

It makes it very easy for police to find identities of people they question. In the UK you have the privacy that you haven't committed an offence by not having an ID so the police can't detain you. So you can just give a fake address and the police can't do anything.

[brokenmachine]

> So you can just give a fake address and the police can't do anything.

That sounds like a dangerous strategy. Surely lying to police is an offence.

You'd be better off asking what crime you are suspected of committing first, and if there is none, declining to answer.

Of course, police probably wouldn't like that strategy much either.

[dozzie]

> As a German, you could not be more wrong [...]

Why do you think he's German?

[icc97]

They don't, I'm assuming they're speaking as a German. I'm a Brit living in Belgium.

I see the difference and I wish I could have the privacy of no ID cards back.

[dozzie]

> They don't

They do, or at least that's what they said.

[andrewaylett]

No, they claimed to be German, and _in that capacity_ responded to their parent.

[dozzie]

Not really. bayerrr said to icc97:

> As a German, you could not be more wrong [...]

bayerrr claimed that icc97 was German (this is how this grammatical construction works).

[icc97]

There is an inferred "Speaking as a German", so the author is a letting me know they're German.

But also as you pointed out it makes no sense for them to assume I'm German, but it does make sense if they are German. So I'd just assume the version that makes sense.