I do think it’s stupid that banks etc. require ID to create an account, when ID isn’t a legally required thing to have in the UK - there are many people that don’t have any form of ID.
Yes, in theory they should be able to get a driving license, but they aren’t exactly cheap for people living paycheck-paycheck, and even then, what if it’s someone that doesn’t know enough people to satify the verification/countersignature requirements? I’d love to know what those people do to open a bank account.
We really should just have a National ID card system like plenty of other places. It was trialled briefly before everyone kicked off about it. It would make things much easier.
The libertarians went off on one due to privacy, the same people no doubt use Facebook and other social media and have given personal data willingly via other methods too.
It’s silly though really because if the government really wanted to know, they would know. They wouldn’t need to rollout a national ID system. I think the concept of living privately and the government now ‘knowing’ whatever it is they want hidden doesn’t exist in this age.
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phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
25
There’s Citizencards which are £15 and a scheme to give them to those if you can’t afford that. I don’t know if Monzo would accept it.
CitizenCard is a not-for-profit organisation - we work closely with charities and schools across the country to provide reduced cost or free ID cards to the most vulnerable in society
This used to be a personal bugbear of mine. I once got turned away at the door with a PASS verified card as the bouncer stood in front of a big poster proclaiming “WE ACCEPT PASS CARDS”. I’m pretty sure he then let me in when I showed my student ID that could be very easily faked by anyone
Even our local police station didn’t know what they were despite the PASS scheme being officially backed by the police. I used to take print outs of all the info on the scheme round to venues to try and persuade them to accept it. And I’d go round to places we were going in the daytime to confirm they’d accept it later
I did still manage to use it a fair bit though, this was a good 10 years ago now though. Just for age of course, mine wasn’t even purported to be an actual ID, just proof of age.
But I made the unfair and extraordinarily lazy assumption that @TonyBennet is more likely to travel again, lives in London and therefore has absolutely no intention of driving a car .
Mainly just because it was a personal mission of mine. If a company displays a poster stating we accept PASS they should accept PASS. It used to drive me insane that places would accept stupid things like a photocopy of my passport or my student ID that were no proof whatsoever, but not this thing that they said they would, and had been specifically designed for proof of age with (I imagine) quite a lot of government money invested into it since it was backed by various agencies and our entire school got a free one.
There were other minor reasons too. When you’re on a very tight budget or don’t earn any of your own money at all, the cost of a provisional is actually quite a bit, plus you have to know someone to countersign. And I knew others in the same situation. One time when I did it, for example, was for our upcoming sixth form party, I knew others in sixth form wouldn’t have another option but we all had PASS cards.
Plus I didn’t want to take my passport out to a nightclub.
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