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[Loud Whispers]

I wasn't kidding a few days ago when I said that you'd be surprised how many people refuse to have their medical data shared with the national medical database. Crap like this is why.

I always assumed it was the electoral roll that did me in. Always getting robot calls claiming I'm being done in for tax fraud or won the lottery

[martinuzz]

I'm slightly terrified.
Those prank calls are the least of evils that can be done with the data stolen.

They have all the nescessary information to buy property on my name, or hire a warehouse in the harbor to smuggle cocaine in, and I would never know (until in the former case, the tax service comes knocking, or in the latter case, a SWAT team lifts me off my bed in the middle of the night).

The only thing that could really be done to stop that threat is for our government to destroy all census data and social security numbers and give everyone a new identity

[wierd]

And then afterwards, take data security fucking seriously.

[martinuzz]

I've been warning and ranting about this for ages.

A few years ago, a new law was passed for coffeeshops (they dutch type, that sells weed and hasj). They were no longer allowed to sell weed to foreigners, 'to reduce nuisances caused by drug tourism'.

As for the practival application, my city municipality distributed scanners and software to make full colour scans of our passports, so the coffeeshops could check the residency of their customers.
Don't ask me why they couldn't just have the store clerks check someone's passport without scanning it. It makes no sense.

I considered this whole thing strange, and me, having been local politician for one of our major political parties for years and knowing my way around the municipalities' telephone numbers and civil servants a bit, made some calls to inquire whether there were any measures in place for supervision and control of what happened to the full colour scans of the passports...

There were none.

This made me send a letter to our dutch version of the FBI (AIVD), to inform them that our city (and probably many more) gave full colour scans of passports away of tens of thousands of people (per city) for free to the underground criminal circuit, with a cherry on top.

With the know-how, you don't want to know what people of malicious intent can do with a full colour passport scan. You really don't.

A few weeks after my letter to the AIVD, the new law was put on ice and no longer enforced. Coffeeshops no longer scan passports.

It does not comfort me that now, not only is my full colour passport out in the criminal open, now they have all sorts of additional sensitive personal information to go with it as well. My identity (and that of many others) is so compromised right now, I can't even begin to describe it.

Let's say that movie, 'the Net' is scratching the surface of it.

[heydude6]

Let's say that movie, 'the Net' is scratching the surface of it.

God, that’s an obscure reference if I’ve ever seen one. That movie was the epitome of pre-2000s cheese.

[Starver]

I know I'm British, which puts me in a particularly non-European mindset even if I would have prefered to still being European more than I am now, but the idea of requiring a passport to be served at a local (to me) establishment is... Strange. The people who would be more likely to habitually carry their passports around here would be the foreigners who needed them to get here.

Yet "But first, can I see your passport", "Sure, here it is!", "Aha! By being actually able to prove that you are foreign, I am now obliged to refuse to serve you. Have a nice day!" is a much stranger filtering mechanism that probably won't hack it.


(I don't even carry a photo-Id, habitually. I'll even go out without a bank-card, at times, even though that's probably better two-factor authentication - without going beyond everyday equipment - than my driving license. And only marginally less definitive of residency.)

[martinuzz]

Carrying a passport/ID isn't habitual here. It's mandatory. I think the fine for not carrying when asked by a police officer is 130 euros, possibly more nowadays.

I went to a protest against it when that law was passed some 10 years ago, mumbling angry 'Ausweisspflicht' sounds (that's what the Germans called it when they forced it upon us during WW2 occupation).

A law like that was still in the 'unthinkable' and 'political suicide' universe when I grew up, but yeah, 9/11 changed things worldwide.

[nenjin]

Maybe we're conflating passport and ID. To Americans, Passports are your travel documents. Your ID is your local/national ID.

You're supposed to have your US ID on you at all times, although I think the laws regarding it vary state to state. And when you're abroad, most Americans understand the need to have your passport on you at all times.

But it would be weird for us to carry our passports around with us here in the US.

[martinuzz]

The difference between ID and passport over here is that ID allows travel between Schengen nations, a passport is needed for travel outside of the EU (and ofcourse also counts as a ID card for EU travel purposes).

For national identification purposes, they are the same, and both valid.

Most people have ID cards because they think they are cheaper. They are, as a one time purchase, but the ID card loses validity after 5 years, the passport 10 years, making it the cheaper option long term haha.

EDIT: The passport is nothing more than the ID card bound into booklet form so that it has room for visum stamps.

[Starver]

I know the prevalence of passport ownership is more in the UK than the US (who'd want to ever leave the US, right?), but we're[1] very much not passport carriers. Not even an obligation to carry[2] the driving license whilst driving

[1] The mainland British, that is, not sure about NI in general, or the special cases of the much smaller and possibly more "internationalised" CI and IoM populations.

[2] I can roll off the alphanumeric serial#, but the first bit is obvious, the second bit happens to make a nice pattern and the third element (that could be much more random) happens to look meaningful, to me, so much so that I thought it actually meant something when I first received it in the form of a Provisional (i.e. learner's) License, oh so many years ago. It's hard to forget it, not that I expect to be asked for it (license or 'number'). But then my National Insurance number (SSN, for 'Merkins, not sure about you other Yurrupeans) is nowhere near as memorable (nor a photocard) or often actually used for anything, but I still inexicably recall it easily on demand. I thought I knew my youth-hostel membership card number, too, but after a decade or two of non-use (but it being a Lifetime Membership, subscribed to back in the '70s, still valid) they might have changed something in their database, making the one on my card invalid though they could still look me up on their now computerised system.

[ChairmanPoo]

A few years ago, a new law was passed for coffeeshops (they dutch type, that sells weed and hasj). They were no longer allowed to sell weed to foreigners, 'to reduce nuisances caused by drug tourism'

I dont think that was in effect in 2019

[martinuzz]

No it is a bit longer ago, somewhere between 6 and 10 years I think.

EDIT: somewhere between 6 and 8 years. It was not before 2014, because that is when I got my current passport, which made the full colour scan an issue for me until 2024, then I get a new passport.

[ChairmanPoo]

I mean, I know for a fact that a bunch of my trainees were getting high in a smoke parlor in Amsterdam alongside a pharma rep

[martinuzz]

They went to the best pharmacy then.

[Vector]

I know I'm British, which puts me in a particularly non-European mindset even if I would have prefered to still being European more than I am now, but the idea of requiring a passport to be served at a local (to me) establishment is... Strange. The people who would be more likely to habitually carry their passports around here would be the foreigners who needed them to get here.

It's totally standard in Russia, you bring your passport for service at the post office ... and there are like "Russian" "non-Russian" lines at most tourist attractions.