Thank you @dublinpilot, you have put it much more eloquently than I can.
dublinpilot wrote:
The difference is, in the absence of any reason or suspicion, are you obliged to identify yourself to a police officer simply because they ask?
I would rather say: The true difference is what happens if a police officer claims that “you walked wobbly on the pavement and therefore posed a risk on road traffic” or some similar things.
The US is a great example: In absence of any reason you do not have to produce anything. But driving your bike on the wrong side of the street is (at least in some states) already enough reason to get searched and detained.
So the core question would be: Is there a completely anonymous way (that does not include spending time in jail) to protect yourself against unjustified accusations by the police? If not, you have a de facto obligation to identify yourself…
In much of Europe you must carry ID at all times, and people in positions of authority have a right to see it ‘just because’. The UK doesn’t go in for this, presumably for deep-seated cultural reasons – after both world wars ID cards were quickly banished.
And UK leads in identity theft cases but that’s not the problem – the problem is showing ID card to authorized official 
And just for the records: In Germany you need to possess an ID card but you do not need to carry it with you. Therefore – very similar to the UK – you don’t need to show it to a police officer if this officer does not have a “valid reason”.
The main issue with national ID cards is what they represent and enable: registered addresses, ‘benefits’ paid by your own taxes enabled by the card, tracked to it and the address shown, the associated inability to move within the country without defecto government approval and so on.
I have friend in Milan who wanted to move to Bibione, where his family had a small summer home. He did in fact move, and made money selling vacation housing there. But every time he wanted to go to the doctor he had to drive to Milan, and the only way to change that situation was to reregister with the local government. Unfortunately that required an unscheduled in person inspection by the local police at his office. Every time they came he was out selling real estate so it never happened.
This kind of thing makes me feel ill to think about… but happily no matter where I am in the world I don’t have to review that situation with any government representatives after proving to them who I am
The issue is not that Brits don’t have ways of proving their ID, or that they aren’t tracked (via GSM, every 10 mins, via google, via apple, all the time, etc).
The issue is that in much of the world it is a criminal offence to not carry it at all times, and Brits don’t want that. Personally I think that’s a good thing; I don’t want to be carrying more than my phone.
Graham wrote:
Well, you don’t. You don’t need to carry ID and you don’t need to tell a policeman who you are (or prove it) just because he wants to know.
You don’t even need to be carrying your driving licence while driving in the UK. If you don’t have it with you and the police need to see it for some reason (e.g. you committed a motoring offence), the police give you a “producer” (produce it at the police station within a few days). The only thing I carry habitually these days is my phone – pretty much everywhere takes contactless phone payments these days.
The issue is that in much of the world it is a criminal offence to not carry it at all times, and Brits don’t want that.
But suddenly somehow they don’t have any issue with that when they travel abroad and they are obliged to carry passports.
johnh wrote:
An Indian acquaintance got stopped in San Diego and ended up spending a night in jail because he didn’t have it
A British Indian friend of mine from some years ago was living in the US at the same time as me: people kept assuming he was Mexican and speaking Spanish to him (which he doesn’t speak, and he has a “BBC English” accent). He and his friends had trouble crossing the border once after visiting Mexico, because the immigration official on the US side refused to believe their passports were genuine until the British Embassy sorted it out (this was in the mid 90s), the officer went as far to accuse them of “faking a British accent”!
