Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by robin_reala 2857 days ago
The UK government isn’t allowed to issue mandatory ID cards after the Identity Documents Act 2010: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/40/crossheading/re...

No ID cards are to be issued by the Secretary of State at any time on or after the day on which this Act is passed.

The UK equivalent of a SSN is a National Insurance number, but it’s totally possible to be a citizen without one (e.g. naturalised non-working spouse). NI numbers also aren‘t guaranteed to be unique (if a person is assigned a temporary NI number it’ll be non-unique with other people with the same birth date).
1 comments
psergeant 2857 days ago
> The UK government isn’t allowed to

This is reasonably misleading, as nothing at all stops a new government with a parliamentary majority from simply scrapping that law.

link
robin_reala 2857 days ago
That applies to absolutely anything a government could decide to want to do though. If you want to be picky then yes, the UK government currently isn’t allowed to issue ID cards.
link
psergeant 2857 days ago
> That applies to absolutely anything a government could decide to want to do though

Mmm, that’s not true. Courts recognise EU supremacy over the British parliament, although it would be possible to ant-fuck this point if you were feeling truly pedantic.

link