[Tade0]

Reason #4: ID cards would function as "internal passports" that monitor citizens' movements

I don't understand this one. This was never a thing in the EU, even though IDs are mandatory in just about every member state.

I spent on-and-off four years in Italy and while I initially had to present and ID to my landlord there, who then needed to pass this data to the police, nobody bothered me after that or checked if I'm still there.

Hell, even after a law was passed that initially basically forbade anyone who was in the country more than half of the year from driving a car with foreign plates I still wasn't bothered by anyone, because as I was a citizen of a Schengen area state, there was no reliable way to determine when and where was I lately.

[yebyen]

That's interesting. When I changed jobs and moved from NY to Indiana, so my wife could pursue a graduate degree, I had every intention of maintaining my ID and permanent residence in NY, (since I could always still receive mail there via my parents, who allowed me to maintain my permanent residence there whenever I rented or was resident in student housing.)

It quickly came to my attention by communicating with car insurance that I could not do this legally (they sought me out, I have no idea what caused this, perhaps a National Change of Address record triggered?) my car insurance would be terminated because my car was no longer "garaged" in NY, and a lack of insurance on my vehicle registered in NY would trigger a suspension of my license, (and eventually a bench warrant could be issued potentially leading to my arrest, if I did not take action before 30-60 day window passed.)

I wonder if you got lucky, or if this scenario doesn't play out the same way in EU? FWIW, it turned out that everything about being an Indiana state resident is cheaper than living in New York, and it really was to my benefit to get my home permanent residence changed to the new state.

(It was very surprising that I had to do this, though, as a student you are allowed to maintain your primary residence in a different state, I guess this justification works for undergraduate but not for a spouse's PhD study...)

[StillBored]

Car insurance and registration is one of those "interesting" areas if one bothers to peek below the surface. I've got a couple stories about it, but how about this (details removed to avoid personal information) one.

A few years ago, my girlfriend moved overseas for about a year, nearing the end of her time overseas I went over and we got married as we had planned. A short while later she returned and moved in with me, having mostly gotten rid of her car/apartment rental/etc (and moved the remainder of her personal items she didn't take overseas to my place) before she left the US. Within a couple weeks of her return, I received a letter in the mail from my automobile insurance stating that they had reason to believe that additional adults of driving age and related to me were living in my house but weren't on my insurance. I either had to notify them of said persons and sign some paperwork indicating that they would never drive my vehicle, or I had to add them to my insurance (for an additional $$$ a year of course).

Now when I got married overseas we did some some paperwork local to that country. But the state I was living in, there was additional paperwork that needed to be completed stating that I had been married overseas/etc. As far as I'm aware that paperwork had not yet been filed before the insurance company contacted me. Nor had my wife changed her address from her foreign one.

So, somehow, not only did the insurance company discover that we were married, they somehow found out when my wife had flown back to the US as well (she returned a bit after me for various reasons). Its not hard to come up with ideas for how they might have put these details together, but I've never managed to find any evidence of the existence of the kind of channels/databases that must have existed for them to pull this off, considering it was a low key event.

[Tade0]

And all that for a couple hundred $$$ annually you would probably have to pay had you added your wife to your insurance?

How is that even legal?