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> "I've never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly l

> "I've never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly look at it. We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc.

kilroy123 5y ago
Not to go into a restaurant to eat. Which is what is now being asked in many places.
- davb 5y ago
  Unless you are a young person (or look like one) and decide to have alcohol with your meal. As much an optional act as going to a restaurant in the first place.
- dgellow 5y ago
  Well, now we do. At least in Hamburg, Germany. It was very quick to adapt, you flash your QR code and that’s it, we are back to supporting our local restaurants and other businesses we love. The alternative was to see them close one by one, I’m personally very happy with the way the EU vaccine pass has been implemented.
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    You understand that the restaurants were closing “one by one” because the government was closing them, and not because patrons were not attending them? It was a self-inflected wound.
    - howinteresting 5y ago
      What is your evidence for the implied counterfactual?
      - tazjin 5y ago
        I'm not the parent poster, but to answer: All the countries in which restaurants, bars etc. are open as normal, no "health passports" and other newspeak gadgets are needed, and the apocalypse still hasn't happened.
davb 5y ago
Indeed. Bear in mind that that before becoming Health Secretary, Javid was very recently Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps his motivations lie somewhere other than public health.
- jlokier 5y ago
  I've generally regarded his motivations as "be supine" and "pander to the right", whatever his role. His position on "papers please" type issues is mixed, saying one thing and doing another. I can't tell if that's because of his own personality, or because of ongoing prejudice in the British system and in the Conservative party, requiring him to not be too challenging. The way he was pushed out of the Chancellor position by Dominic Cummings sounded awful; I'm surprised he accepted another job under the present governent. He was Home Secretary before being Chancellor, and in that role opted to keep up the Hostile Environment policies and Deport First, Appeal Later policies. I mention those two, because they are indicative of a "papers please" type of culture. The former requires every minor landlord to perform a "right to rent" check on every tenant or lodger they suspect to be not British, or face a large fine. Inevitably leading to landlords choosing not to rent to non-British people to avoid the hassle and risk of getting it wrong, an increase in homelessness among people without the right papers to prove they're allowed to pay for a home, and an increase in abusive housing relationships. The latter ensure that illegal actions by the Home Office go unchallenged despite statistics showing the Home Office often acts unlawfully and often loses in court. It's very difficult for a person to conduct an appeal after they're removed from their own documents at home, legal support, income, friends, and other resources; this is also borne out in statistics: No appeal lodged in this way has succeeded, which stands in stark contrast to appeals lodged in country. (The UK Supreme Court just ruled this policy unlawful. I expect the Home Office will try to continue the policy anyway.) Point is, Javid said he was going to address injustices in the immigration department when he became Home Secretary, and then he didn't.
roenxi 5y ago
But those are largely proving your identity in a situation where you wish to identify yourself. Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.
- paul_f 5y ago
  I don't understand the downvotes. This is a legitimate distinction.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    Discussions generally don't sway people. When someone has a fixed worldview and you present facts that undermine that worldview, he perceives you as a threat (like he would a large bear) and reacts to those facts with the same fight-or-flight response that threats generally elicit. Online, this fight-or-flight response manifests as people downvoting you, flagging you, doxxing you, and so on for presenting hard-to-refuse facts and arguments contrary to any entrenched but incorrect narrative. The problem is exacerbated on HN by high-karma accounts having the ability to flag discussions to death without engagement and essentially end them unilaterally.
    - Retric 5y ago
      It’s not about disagreeing with them. I generally downvote pedantic exceptions because you should respond to an argument in the most generous terms. largely proving your identity did apply to the examples given but doesn’t address the thrust of their argument. Showing an ID to drink or get a senior discount isn’t about identifying you specifically just something about you and that is completely accepted by the general public. Show your military ID to get a discount is another. The issue I take with such pedantic exceptions is they derail the thread. Edit: This is a far more direct response which I upvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323
      - roenxi 5y ago
        There argument was a one line "we regularly [do this"]. My two line "no, those things are different to this thing" is responding both directly to the thrust of the argument and with an appropriate amount of effort.
thepasswordis 5y ago
Would you be okay with a card showing your religious affiliation before being allowed into a crowded public space? Or before being allowed to rent a truck, or buy fertilizer? Even though this would likely make the world safer: I wouldn't, and even though it wouldn't prevent me from doing anything, I would still resist it. But it would increase my safety, even though it would inconvenience some other people based on the choices that they have made.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Why do you think it would increase your safety? That's not at all obvious to me.
  - bequanna 5y ago
    There is a well known trade off between public safety and personal freedom. I believe that is the point the parent comment is trying to make.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    That is the thing I don't understand. Who do these vaccine cards protect? Anybody can get a vaccine that keeps them out of the hospital or dying. There is no reason for a vaccinated individual to give a single hoot about the vaccination status of person next to them. The idea that the vaccinated population needs to be "protected" from all the unvaccinated individuals is absurd. Covid is here forever and we will all probably catch it at some point. If you are vaccinated you'll at least not have any serious complications from it, which is pretty damn good... So yeah, I haven't the faintest idea who vaccine passports actually protect? Also, all these pro-mandate arguments never discuss if boosters will be required to remain a "vaccinated" status. Does that mean we are now obligated to get a booster every time it comes out? And when does this all go away? At what point to we drop this stuff? Or are we seriously gonna be "carded" at the door of every business from here on out? Again, covid is here forever and there will always be some level of "cases" provided we continue testing for it...
- himinlomax 5y ago
TeeMassive 5y ago
Those IDs are not meant to 1) show your medical history which is a protected right and 2) is used as a way to coerce a medical intervention which is against free and informed consent. Forcing medical interventions in the name of the public good has always degenerated in the worse atrocities and abuses in history.
- junon 5y ago
  > against free and informed consent This is a problem - it is often not very informed. As for medical history, we have to show vaccination records for a number of things - school, travel sometimes, certain lines of work. Proof of vaccination against a highly mutation-prone virus in the midst of a pandemic doesn't reveal anything more about you than it would about anyone else - which is specifically allowed via HIPAA, for example. It's no more medical history than knowing your age. These points don't really stand up for me. It's like saying "I choose to believe they cause autism, I've been informed by my other Facebook Mom group members, thus I do not consent." None of it is based on science or rationality, in my opinion.
  - hervature 5y ago
    What about waiting for full FDA approval? I agree that your Facebook Mom groups are full of BS but why are PhD earners more hesitant than only high school educated [1]. [1] - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v...
    - howinteresting 5y ago
      The Pfizer vaccine has already received full FDA approval, and Moderna is expected to get it shortly.
      - linuxftw 5y ago
        While this is technically true, it's only because the FDA abandoned all previous procedure for full approval.
gadders 5y ago
Voting?
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting, but not so in the rest of the world.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
    > In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting Yes, one party seems to think those of a non-white skin color are unable (through ignorance or lack of access) to obtain any form of ID so they can vote.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      No, they think the poor are less likely to be able to get ID. You probably also think that, because it is obviously true. You don't need to transform it into a reverse-wokeness argument.
      - manquer 5y ago
        Not American or OP, in my country it is lot more likely the poor to have such IDs as without IDs they are not eligible for a lot of social benefits so that correlation is not necessarily obvious to many.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      That's rather one-sided. Both major US parties recognize (almost certainly correctly) that the more friction you put in the voting process, however seemingly reasonable, the fewer low-income people will proportionately vote. And one party considers that a bug while the other considers it a feature. ADDED: Is there anything in this statement that is remotely controversial?
      - jokethrowaway 5y ago
edent 5y ago
> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc. I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true. You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay. My driving licence stays at home. If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code. I can pick up a parcel by showing some non-ID like a bank card, utility bill, etc.
- vinay427 5y ago
  > If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code. The GP comment said "driving a car," not hiring one. It's not clear to me why you responded to a different assertion, and I can't find anything that supports the idea that you don't need to show a driving license while driving if it's requested. https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-rights https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ... "If you do not have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days." > You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. If I may be so bold, I think it's fairly reasonable to understand their comment (in the context of requiring ID) as referring to checking out/borrowing books from a library to read, rather than simply reading them in a library.
  - edent 5y ago
    I don't need to show my licence to get in my car and drive. For any normal use of a car, there is no requirement to show a licence before doing so. Have you ever applied for a library card? Most libraries will give you one without any verifiable form of ID. And the card itself certainly isn't ID.
    - toyg 5y ago
      > I don't need to show my licence to get in my car It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it, and obviously you could not rent it (yes, code and blabla, it's just a proxy for it). > Have you ever applied for a library card? Yes, and in fact they were pretty fastidious with validating that I lived in the area they serve (that might be because I have a funny accent, but still). I don't remember how I managed to get it, eventually - likely with the usual utility bills, which here work exactly as ID would, as long as you have a pair of them. Their use for this is extremely problematic.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc. This is a classic demonstration that "slippery slope" isn't a fallacy. First you need a driving license. Privacy conscious people objected. You don't need to show your driving license to drive, was the response, only if you break traffic laws or get into an accident. There's no one using it to track everywhere you go or anything. Then comes the vaccine passport. Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference? And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again. Meanwhile we now have ALPR cameras recording the location history of every vehicle on the roads. Because some slopes are actually slippery.
- Nexxxeh 5y ago
  >Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference? The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated. >And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again. You'd have to show your vaccine passport if you want to partake in proportionately high risk activities where you not only have risk to yourself, but you also pose a risk to others. And it's [almost] always places you have to take ID anyway, to prove your age. Why should those who chose to not do the socially responsible thing of getting vaccinated, get to amplify the risk to those who do?
  - joenot443 5y ago
    >The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated. Plenty of Canadians, like myself, have huge objections to the privacy implications of our passport program.
    - chii 5y ago
      what is the privacy concern, other than the private info of whether you chose to get a vaccine or not?
spookthesunset 5y ago
> We regularly show papers for everyday activities When is the last time you had to show papers to go to a McDonalds, a clothing store or a museum?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

kilroy123 5y ago

Not to go into a restaurant to eat. Which is what is now being asked in many places.

davb 5y ago
Unless you are a young person (or look like one) and decide to have alcohol with your meal. As much an optional act as going to a restaurant in the first place.
dgellow 5y ago
Well, now we do. At least in Hamburg, Germany. It was very quick to adapt, you flash your QR code and that’s it, we are back to supporting our local restaurants and other businesses we love. The alternative was to see them close one by one, I’m personally very happy with the way the EU vaccine pass has been implemented.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  You understand that the restaurants were closing “one by one” because the government was closing them, and not because patrons were not attending them? It was a self-inflected wound.
  - howinteresting 5y ago
    What is your evidence for the implied counterfactual?
    - tazjin 5y ago
      I'm not the parent poster, but to answer: All the countries in which restaurants, bars etc. are open as normal, no "health passports" and other newspeak gadgets are needed, and the apocalypse still hasn't happened.

davb 5y ago

Indeed. Bear in mind that that before becoming Health Secretary, Javid was very recently Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps his motivations lie somewhere other than public health.

jlokier 5y ago
I've generally regarded his motivations as "be supine" and "pander to the right", whatever his role. His position on "papers please" type issues is mixed, saying one thing and doing another. I can't tell if that's because of his own personality, or because of ongoing prejudice in the British system and in the Conservative party, requiring him to not be too challenging. The way he was pushed out of the Chancellor position by Dominic Cummings sounded awful; I'm surprised he accepted another job under the present governent. He was Home Secretary before being Chancellor, and in that role opted to keep up the Hostile Environment policies and Deport First, Appeal Later policies. I mention those two, because they are indicative of a "papers please" type of culture. The former requires every minor landlord to perform a "right to rent" check on every tenant or lodger they suspect to be not British, or face a large fine. Inevitably leading to landlords choosing not to rent to non-British people to avoid the hassle and risk of getting it wrong, an increase in homelessness among people without the right papers to prove they're allowed to pay for a home, and an increase in abusive housing relationships. The latter ensure that illegal actions by the Home Office go unchallenged despite statistics showing the Home Office often acts unlawfully and often loses in court. It's very difficult for a person to conduct an appeal after they're removed from their own documents at home, legal support, income, friends, and other resources; this is also borne out in statistics: No appeal lodged in this way has succeeded, which stands in stark contrast to appeals lodged in country. (The UK Supreme Court just ruled this policy unlawful. I expect the Home Office will try to continue the policy anyway.) Point is, Javid said he was going to address injustices in the immigration department when he became Home Secretary, and then he didn't.

roenxi 5y ago

But those are largely proving your identity in a situation where you wish to identify yourself. Proving an unrelated fact about yourself solely because the government thinks so is a different thing.

paul_f 5y ago
I don't understand the downvotes. This is a legitimate distinction.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Discussions generally don't sway people. When someone has a fixed worldview and you present facts that undermine that worldview, he perceives you as a threat (like he would a large bear) and reacts to those facts with the same fight-or-flight response that threats generally elicit. Online, this fight-or-flight response manifests as people downvoting you, flagging you, doxxing you, and so on for presenting hard-to-refuse facts and arguments contrary to any entrenched but incorrect narrative. The problem is exacerbated on HN by high-karma accounts having the ability to flag discussions to death without engagement and essentially end them unilaterally.
  - Retric 5y ago
    It’s not about disagreeing with them. I generally downvote pedantic exceptions because you should respond to an argument in the most generous terms. largely proving your identity did apply to the examples given but doesn’t address the thrust of their argument. Showing an ID to drink or get a senior discount isn’t about identifying you specifically just something about you and that is completely accepted by the general public. Show your military ID to get a discount is another. The issue I take with such pedantic exceptions is they derail the thread. Edit: This is a far more direct response which I upvoted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28501323
    - roenxi 5y ago
      There argument was a one line "we regularly [do this"]. My two line "no, those things are different to this thing" is responding both directly to the thrust of the argument and with an appropriate amount of effort.

thepasswordis 5y ago

Would you be okay with a card showing your religious affiliation before being allowed into a crowded public space? Or before being allowed to rent a truck, or buy fertilizer? Even though this would likely make the world safer: I wouldn't, and even though it wouldn't prevent me from doing anything, I would still resist it. But it would increase my safety, even though it would inconvenience some other people based on the choices that they have made.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Why do you think it would increase your safety? That's not at all obvious to me.
- bequanna 5y ago
  There is a well known trade off between public safety and personal freedom. I believe that is the point the parent comment is trying to make.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  That is the thing I don't understand. Who do these vaccine cards protect? Anybody can get a vaccine that keeps them out of the hospital or dying. There is no reason for a vaccinated individual to give a single hoot about the vaccination status of person next to them. The idea that the vaccinated population needs to be "protected" from all the unvaccinated individuals is absurd. Covid is here forever and we will all probably catch it at some point. If you are vaccinated you'll at least not have any serious complications from it, which is pretty damn good... So yeah, I haven't the faintest idea who vaccine passports actually protect? Also, all these pro-mandate arguments never discuss if boosters will be required to remain a "vaccinated" status. Does that mean we are now obligated to get a booster every time it comes out? And when does this all go away? At what point to we drop this stuff? Or are we seriously gonna be "carded" at the door of every business from here on out? Again, covid is here forever and there will always be some level of "cases" provided we continue testing for it...
himinlomax 5y ago

TeeMassive 5y ago

Those IDs are not meant to 1) show your medical history which is a protected right and 2) is used as a way to coerce a medical intervention which is against free and informed consent. Forcing medical interventions in the name of the public good has always degenerated in the worse atrocities and abuses in history.

junon 5y ago
> against free and informed consent This is a problem - it is often not very informed. As for medical history, we have to show vaccination records for a number of things - school, travel sometimes, certain lines of work. Proof of vaccination against a highly mutation-prone virus in the midst of a pandemic doesn't reveal anything more about you than it would about anyone else - which is specifically allowed via HIPAA, for example. It's no more medical history than knowing your age. These points don't really stand up for me. It's like saying "I choose to believe they cause autism, I've been informed by my other Facebook Mom group members, thus I do not consent." None of it is based on science or rationality, in my opinion.
- hervature 5y ago
  What about waiting for full FDA approval? I agree that your Facebook Mom groups are full of BS but why are PhD earners more hesitant than only high school educated [1]. [1] - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v...
  - howinteresting 5y ago
    The Pfizer vaccine has already received full FDA approval, and Moderna is expected to get it shortly.
    - linuxftw 5y ago
      While this is technically true, it's only because the FDA abandoned all previous procedure for full approval.

gadders 5y ago

Voting?

ed25519FUUU 5y ago
In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting, but not so in the rest of the world.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
  > In America it’s widely controversial to require ID when voting Yes, one party seems to think those of a non-white skin color are unable (through ignorance or lack of access) to obtain any form of ID so they can vote.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    No, they think the poor are less likely to be able to get ID. You probably also think that, because it is obviously true. You don't need to transform it into a reverse-wokeness argument.
    - manquer 5y ago
      Not American or OP, in my country it is lot more likely the poor to have such IDs as without IDs they are not eligible for a lot of social benefits so that correlation is not necessarily obvious to many.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That's rather one-sided. Both major US parties recognize (almost certainly correctly) that the more friction you put in the voting process, however seemingly reasonable, the fewer low-income people will proportionately vote. And one party considers that a bug while the other considers it a feature. ADDED: Is there anything in this statement that is remotely controversial?
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago

edent 5y ago

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc. I don't think you live in the UK - because none of those things are true. You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. I've never had to show ID for a hotel stay. My driving licence stays at home. If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code. I can pick up a parcel by showing some non-ID like a bank card, utility bill, etc.

vinay427 5y ago
> If I want to hire a car, I generate a one-time code. The GP comment said "driving a car," not hiring one. It's not clear to me why you responded to a different assertion, and I can't find anything that supports the idea that you don't need to show a driving license while driving if it's requested. https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-rights https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ... "If you do not have these documents with you, you have 7 days to take them to a police station. You’re breaking the law if you do not show the requested documents within 7 days." > You can go into just about any library and read a book without showing a library card. If I may be so bold, I think it's fairly reasonable to understand their comment (in the context of requiring ID) as referring to checking out/borrowing books from a library to read, rather than simply reading them in a library.
- edent 5y ago
  I don't need to show my licence to get in my car and drive. For any normal use of a car, there is no requirement to show a licence before doing so. Have you ever applied for a library card? Most libraries will give you one without any verifiable form of ID. And the card itself certainly isn't ID.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > I don't need to show my licence to get in my car It would likely be difficult to buy a car without it, and obviously you could not rent it (yes, code and blabla, it's just a proxy for it). > Have you ever applied for a library card? Yes, and in fact they were pretty fastidious with validating that I lived in the area they serve (that might be because I have a funny accent, but still). I don't remember how I managed to get it, eventually - likely with the usual utility bills, which here work exactly as ID would, as long as you have a pair of them. Their use for this is extremely problematic.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities - library card for reading books, ID for a hotel stay, driving license for driving a car, ID to pickup a parcel etc. This is a classic demonstration that "slippery slope" isn't a fallacy. First you need a driving license. Privacy conscious people objected. You don't need to show your driving license to drive, was the response, only if you break traffic laws or get into an accident. There's no one using it to track everywhere you go or anything. Then comes the vaccine passport. Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference? And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again. Meanwhile we now have ALPR cameras recording the location history of every vehicle on the roads. Because some slopes are actually slippery.

Nexxxeh 5y ago
>Privacy conscious people object. Now the response is, hey, you already have to show your driving license if you get pulled over for speeding, what's the difference? The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated. >And you don't have to show your vaccine passport if you, um, never go outside again. You'd have to show your vaccine passport if you want to partake in proportionately high risk activities where you not only have risk to yourself, but you also pose a risk to others. And it's [almost] always places you have to take ID anyway, to prove your age. Why should those who chose to not do the socially responsible thing of getting vaccinated, get to amplify the risk to those who do?
- joenot443 5y ago
  >The main objections to vaccine passports in England aren't privacy, they're that it discriminates against those who refuse to get vaccinated. Plenty of Canadians, like myself, have huge objections to the privacy implications of our passport program.
  - chii 5y ago
    what is the privacy concern, other than the private info of whether you chose to get a vaccine or not?

spookthesunset 5y ago

> We regularly show papers for everyday activities When is the last time you had to show papers to go to a McDonalds, a clothing store or a museum?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]