Malibuflyer wrote:
It is actually exactly the same in Germany: Failure to show your identity card is not an offense.However, it’s not only about theory but about practice: If you can’t or do not want to show your ID and the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” (key question being: What is the hurdle of reasonable suspicion and what happens if the officer thinks he has one and you think he doesn’t) that in Germany have the right to check your identity by other means – and that could include questioning you, searching you and detaining you. They do not need to let you go before your identity is clear.
And the very same (theoretic) way that failure to produce an ID is not an offense, being put under arrest for a night is not a penalty if it is necessary to have the time until your identity is clear. So you don’t commit an offense and hence you are not sanctioned – but you still spend a night in jail if things go bad…
No, it’s not the same. What you’re suggesting there (or what I think you’re suggesting if I understand correctly) cannot happen in the UK.
Taken on their own, an unwillingness to engage with the police and/or refusal to identify yourself are explicitly NOT grounds for suspicion. A British police officer has no right to check your identity and it is not their job to do so. They may ask (if, say, they are on the lookout for John Smith who was last seen near here and is believed to have set fire to a house) but no-one they ask is required to cooperate. If they think you are John Smith they will likely arrest you whether you say yes or no, so it doesn’t matter who you are – but on a practical level it may matter who they think you are. If they really thought you were, they would arrest you even if you produced ID showing you were someone else because it’s easy enough to fake.
Assuming they arrest you, the question of your identity is irrelevant to the rules that apply. They cannot hold you purely for the purposes of establishing who you are – it must be because they genuinely suspect you of a crime and need the time to gather evidence and/or to question you further. They do need to let you go before your identity is clear (after 24hrs) if that time elapses before they can discover it.
The part where you say “They do not need to let you go before your identity is clear” is the fundamental difference, if I understand correctly. British police officers cannot detain a person simply because their identity is unclear. It sounds like perhaps German ones can?
The practical reality that exists in a lot of countries where you must do as a cop says (or co-operate with them / respect their authority / pass the attitude test) or else they can make your life unpleasant (night in the cells / instant fine for some fictitious offence) does not exist in the UK and I am heartily glad of it. Part of this is undoubtedly due to them being unarmed. The armed cop can bully anyone he wants because he has a gun on his belt and is allowed to draw it if physically threatened. The unarmed cop is generally forced by circumstance to refrain from petty bullying and victimisation, especially if alone.
Graham wrote:
The practical reality that exists in a lot of countries where you must do as a cop says (or co-operate with them / respect their authority / pass the attitude test) or else they can make your life unpleasant (night in the cells / instant fine for some fictitious offence) does not exist in the UK and I am heartily glad of it.
You live a sheltered life, or wear a very effective pair of rose-tinted spectacles. While not as likely to kill you as their American counterparts, they can harass people quite effectively, and do so.
And they certainly can keep you after charging you with an offence; if they don’t know who you are you are unlikely to be granted bail.
@Cobalt may I suggest you have also lived a sheltered life. For those who have lived in police states, totalitarian regimes, and military dictatorships the coming to breathe free air in the UK is hard to describe.
Caetano Veloso, in exile from the military dictatorship in his native Brasil summed it up in his anthem to London.
I agree that compared to real oppressive regimes we all can consider ourselves lucky.
My view is that those who the Guardian claims are ‘harassed’ by the police are generally people who I’m quite happy to see the police paying very close attention to.
It’s popular to think that they don’t harass me simply because I’m white, but a more plausible explanation is that it’s because I don’t drive a car with blacked-out windows without insurance, nor meet up with various shady ‘business associates’ in darkened car parks. In short, I don’t give them cause for suspicion.
I didn’t say anything about what happens after they’d charged you, but charge you or release you they must, and charging isn’t done on a whim or out of spite because you won’t tell them your name. If after you’re charged you’re to be held in custody pending trial then a court decides that, not the police.
I am pretty sure thar those of my friends getting frequent grief for the offence known as “driving while black” disagree with that notion. To be fair it has improved in the last 20 years. I have no idea why you think it makes sense that the police pays close attention to a partner in a consultancy, or a teacher in particular.
But then I (and they) live in a location where the police was quite rightfully branded “institutionally racist”.
It is hard to believe this until you experience it yourself or close friends do – I didn’t at first, either, until it became impossible to ignore.
alioth wrote:
The only thing I carry habitually these days is my phone – pretty much everywhere takes contactless phone payments these days.
And that is NOT a problem? I think one of the largest, if not the largest identity/freedom problem we have is the moving away from cash towards a system that keeps track of every single thing you do while making money while doing it. It certainly is way more practical with electronic payments compared with cash, and therefore it is here to stay. We will never go back unless something apocalyptic happens. I’m a member of this “yes to cash” FB group (the worst member, since it’s been ages since I have used cash). It’s a lost cause of course 
Both ID card and passport are voluntary in the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland). At the borders you may however be asked to identify yourself as a member of one of the Nordic countries (especially if you don’t look and speak “fluent Nordic”), so the recommendation is to bring your passport, ID card or driving license. These days even the driving license is an app on the phone, so the phone is all you need (which is extremely practical, but completely insane from an identity/freedom point of view , but practicalities win every day)
As a note. My wife had only this ancient driving license she got at 18. She wanted to have it on the phone, but couldn’t because that required a “modern” machine readable (I guess) driving license. Yesterday she finally renewed her license to this “modern” format only to put it in a drawer so she can forget about it and use her phone
LeSving wrote:
Both ID card and passport are voluntary in the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland). At the borders you may however be asked to identify yourself as a member of one of the Nordic countries (especially if you don’t look and speak “fluent Nordic”), so the recommendation is to bring your passport, ID card or driving license. These days even the driving license is an app on the phone, so the phone is all you need (which is extremely practical, but completely insane from an identity/freedom point of view , but practicalities win every day)
I was really frustrated when the UK governement decided to cancel the ID cards – it is so much more conenient to carry it with you than a passport if you want to cross the borders…
Not sure any UK ID card would have replaced a passport, given that the UK was never going to join Schengen.
I have a vague memory that many years ago you could travel to Ireland using some sort of ID card which you could get from the Post Office.
Peter wrote:
Not sure any UK ID card would have replaced a passport, given that the UK was never going to join Schengen.I have a vague memory that many years ago you could travel to Ireland using some sort of ID card which you could get from the Post Office.
No, that was the point! It was supposed to be usable for trips to France, for example.
