1. Packing-plastic.
You need to have a credit card, even when you don't need one. When travelling in the UK/Australia anyway, almost any accomodation requires a credit card. Even when you turn up on the spot, in person, at the front desk of a hotel, guesthouse or hostel, with your bag on the floor beside you, and you're looking to book just one night, tonight, and you have a fistful of crispy notes ready to hand over to pay for the night, and they do not have a problem accepting cash... A credit card number is still required, 'for security.' What are you going to do with it, I asked. Nothing, they said, we just need it on our computer system 'for security.'
A few years back my brother had the experience of having his application for a credit card turned down, not because he had a bad credit history, but because he had no credit history. He'd never had a credit card, or any other form of debt, and so there were no records on him for them to check. Rather than think round this, look at his current-account record, or anything else, the bank denied the credit card. You need credit to get credit.
2. Registered Address/PO Boxes
They need to know where to find you. Over at Hobopoet, his latest post (here) talks about car-living and advises getting a PO Box as a way of getting round the mailing problem that comes with having no fixed abode. The USA must be different from the UK, because, as I am currently finding out, I can only have a PO Box if I can provide evidence of my current place of residence in the form of recent utility bills in my name. As I am, once again, in transit, I have no address, so no such utility bills and so no PO Box. Proof of address, in the form of utility bills, is a standard request if you want to register or gain access to just about anything in officialdom - bank accounts, security checks, rental accomodation, utilities...
3. Photo ID
Seeing you for real isn't enough. They need to see you stamped in plastic, and overwritten with biometrics. That night's accomodation at the cheapo youth-hostel that required a credit card? Also needed photo ID. Bank account? Yup, photo ID, 2 forms of thank you very much. Drink in a bar, even though you're well beyond your 18th/21st birthday? Photo ID. Of course, security checks require photo ID. What's the big deal? All you need is your drivers license and/or your passport, you've probably got at least one of them on you at all times?
But whether you're trying to live a low-profile life, a low-carbon life, or are in the unfortunate position of having to live a low-income life, a passport/drivers license may be two things you just don't possess. Not owning these two items doesn't just exclude you from travel overseas or driving, it also excludes you from fully participating in day-to-day life in your home country.
What about standard-issue ID cards? The UK doesn't have these yet, though I know many other countries do. I object, on principal, to the idea. But can principals stand up to practicalities?
4. Inconvenience
The upshot of all this stuff is clever, creeping change. If the government suggests a tightening of security and surveillance, with compulsory trace-able histories and ID cards, it usually sparks a massive controversy in the media around civil liberties and freedoms, that clogs up the progression of the policy. But, inconvenience, now that's something different. That can move people to accept things that may have been unthinkable when framed in political terms.
In this hard, fast, now society where any delay drives us to the point of rage... The threat of inconvenience has the power to make us accept things that even the threat of terrorism doesn't. The inconvenience of not having all the necessary bits of paper, laminated cards with unflattering photos, the credit history, the strings of numbers, and the barcodes - its not worth it. Getting snarled up in a no-mans-land of 'computer says no' bureaucracy when all you're trying to do is move house, change jobs, receive mail or go on holiday - it'd drive you nuts.
Realistically, faced with that lot, I'd probably accept the ID card without even realising I'd just gone and compromised a step too far.
Would you?
Photo by nolifebeforecoffee
No comments:
Post a Comment