I joined the modern world today when my ID card photo driving licence arrived in the post. Since the new photo licences were introduced I have not changed name, changed address, had any endorsements added or removed, ((not that I have ever had any sort of endorsement to be removed)) or had any categories added or removed. In short, there was no reason to get a new licence.
I could have changed just to get one of the new photo ones, but I couldn’t see the point of forking out just for that. I changed my mind at the weekend when I saw that it has now got a bit cheaper to do it combined with a realisation that its now just a little bit weird to only have the old paper one. It is now increasingly common for places that want forms of identification to much prefer something with a photo on it and I’m tired of having to dig out the passport. Also, Jayne told me how the system involved issupposed to extract details from your passport so you don’t have to sign anything or post photos. My inner anorak wanted to see that work.
I was quite impressed by the process from a technical point of view. I did it all online and supplied my passport number so that the photo and signature could be taken from those records, and within 4 working days the new licence arrived.
I am expecting/hoping for a similarly easy process when the time comes to renew the passport.
The whole thing is not perfect though. For example, I can see why it might be a good thing to have to register and get an ID for all the e-government stuff but I can’t see why the ID has to be so long.  It is alphanumeric, so with only a 5-character ID it is possible to have enough unique combinations for the whole population. With a 6-character ID you have enough combinations for the entire population of the country for many generations – but the ID number is much, much longer than that.
Sorry. Its just something that bugs me. Like how my Southern Water customer number is a 10-digit number. Do they really think they are going to have 10 billion customers?
But that is a small gripe compared to having to still have a paper licence. And not just any paper licence, but an A4 sized one that you are, apparently, supposed to keep and carry around. The main benefit of the credit card-sized licence is that it is, well, credit card size. Fits easily into the wallet without having to be folded up.
So now have a sensibly-sized licence but still have to fold up an A4 sheet so that the wallet will not close properly and the licence will get all ragged around the folds. Exactly one half of this is totally pointless – the back of it is full of instructions. By all means include some instructions in the envelope, but don’t require us to carry them around all the time. Credit cards come with a list of terms and conditions, but we are not required to carry them around all the time.
All that is on the paper version is endorsements, provisional entitlements, entitlement history and address. The address and provisional stuff could go on the plastic card. The rest could go into a magnetic stripe or a chip. As it stands my licence does not prove where I live. To do that I have to produce the paper supplement and show everyone that I am such a goody-goody that I have never had any endorsements.
The only people who need to see that sort of thing are the police, who could easily have a card-reader built into their pandas. The courts who dish out endorsements could have equipment to write to the cards.
All in all its frustrating. The massive bureaucracy of ours has taken a good idea and turned it into something half-arsed again – but I am still unreasonably pleased to have my shiny new bit of plastic.
The reason the id card number is so long is so that you can be categorised, characterised, pigeonholed, classed, sexed, stereotyped, typed, logged, registered, etc. etc. and no doubt feel much safer because “I have done nothing wrong”.
You are a man and you are not a number – but the state thinks you are treats you as one.
Actually, there are many reasons for long ID numbers.
One is to ensure that one kind of number can’t easily be confused with another. One 8 digit number looks like any other. So a prefix or a specific range is often added.
Another is to aid translation. Some systems will just allocate the next available number, others will use some aspect of the data (Driving Licence numbers seem to use the Date of Birth and mix it up a bit) so that an algorithm can perform a match.
Lastly, check-digits are added so that if someone makes an error when reading out or typing the id it can easily be spotted as incorrect.
Sorry to geek out a bit, but I’s spending my days working on a customer database fed by dozens of disparate systems, each with it’s own idiosyncratic way of setting a customer key.
I’m with Danivon on this. ISBN numbers have recently changed for 10 digit to 13 digit and even 10 billion would be pushing it for books that have been in print in the English speaking world since the 1970s. I could explain all the separate segements but would show myself as the sad book-geek that I am…. (The explaination in the Observer last week had a couple of errors in which I could correct but that would be even more book-geeky!)
OK. I can see why they do it – I just can’t see why they do it
But that is just something that frustrates me when I have to phone a call centre and spend 5 minutes reading out a customer number.
The point I am actually more serious about is having to keep a paper licence as well.
My theory is that after about 2 hours or working in a call centre the only pleasure you have left in life is making people repeat huge long numbers (and then saying, sorry, did that start 7625 or 7265….), and then promising to call back. They are still, nominally, human and should be allowed some pleasure in life!