[jamescodesthing]

In the UK all of my final stage interviews had me bring in an ID and National Insurance Number for a photocopy for their records. Has been for over a decade.

Seems a simple enough solution, it’s expected and it’s something the company needs in order to pay me. It’s not a start of interview hostile question, it’s usually something we sort out in the formalities, along with what equipment I’ll need or be using, sorting out ID photos.

[swiftcoder]

The ID system is a lot more fraught in the US - most folks don't have a national ID, and the national insurance (social security) number is just printed on a bit of cardboard. The processes to obtain photo ID vary from state to state within the US, and may be extremely difficult in some cases (lost birth records, born to undocumented immigrant parents, etc).

It's also a hot-button political issue in any number of directions (i.e. requiring photo IDs to vote, or allowing trans folks to change their name/gender on government-issued IDs).

[ACS_Solver]

This is something I find fascinating about the US, there's people functioning in society without photo ID. Official documentation, or things you can use as proof of something, are often trivial to fake. A social security card is a 1950s looking piece of cardboard. More recently, the CDC covid vaccination card is a simple piece of paper that not only lacks vertification features but doesn't even have a routinely used unique identifier for the patient. Before learning this, I used to associate lack of robust ID systems with developing countries.

I know there's a segment of society in the US that associates robust IDs with government overreach and dictatorship, but I see it as fallacious. Yes, communist dictatorships did have a "papers please" system, and you can still easily encounter an ID check in Russia for instance. As somebody who lives in a free and well-functioning country though, I consider a robust ID system to be both a boost to my freedoms and a great convenience.

It's essentially an authentication and signing system. It allows me to positively authenticate myself in any interaction with the government, and thus protects me from impersonation by others. It allows me to sign documents in a way that establishes a chain of trust between the document and my ID, which protects me from fraud. And since interactions with the government are relatively rare, the best part of the system is that it acts as a trust authority between me and third parties. If I want to enter into a contract with some other private entity, the government ID system provides us both with authentication mechanisms that we trust.

[lozenge]

You're talking about Right to Work checks, which are a legal requirement. Companies can do these earlier in the process, but they wouldn't want to due to having to consider the GDPR and Data Protection Act when holding that data.