[skissane]

> Countries without national ID cards are not especially more privacy minded

Australia tried to introduce a national ID card in the 1980s but the concerns over privacy made the idea so politically unpalatable that the government had to kill it

But in practice, for most Australian adults, your drivers license de facto functions as a national ID card. And with modern computer databases, data matching, identity verification APIs (which governments make available to trusted private businesses such as financial institutions) - the privacy benefits of dividing your identity across multiple purpose-specific ID cards vs a single generic one are arguably more theoretical than real.

Plus, Australia is far from being a poster child for privacy, especially as far as privacy intrusions by the government go. (It arguably does somewhat better for those done by the private sector - the AU government’s messaging to corporations who wish to invade its citizen’s privacy is very much we can, you can’t)

[gerdesj]

Feel free to substitute UK for Australia for your entire comment! I remember my mum getting a shitty on about ID cards in the UK back the '80s. We were living in West Germany at the time and the locals had them. The debate in the UK was ... desultory.

I can't speak for other members of the Commonwealth but I'm sure there will be similar stories.

As you say we all have a de-facto ID cards via driving licenses and/or passports. On the bright side, I don't fear for my life describing this state of affairs ... yet 8)