Once again, the issue of national identification cards has come up in the Legislative Assembly. Once again, legislators are in favour of a national ID card, but no one is sure of the guidelines that should govern the issuance of the card.
On one level, having the availability of a national ID card is a good idea. Not every resident on the island has a driver’s licence, voter registration card, work permit card or passport. These people should have the ability to get a form of recognised identification.
We live in a time when identification is becoming increasingly necessary. Many retail stores will not let a person use a debit or credit card without photo ID; if you want to pay the resident’s rate at Boatswain’s Beach, you need an ID proving you’re a resident; if you want to get into an club and look like you could be under 18, you need an ID.
There are reasons for even children under 18 to have ID these days, and there is really nothing they can get except for a passport. No one should carry his or her passport around on a daily basis, especially children.
So having an ID available to the public, and even children of any age, is a good idea. But where things start to get sticky is whether or not to make national IDs mandatory for everyone.
For ex-pats, having to have this card in addition to their passport, their driver’s licence and their work permit card seems a bit excessive, and just another layer of bureaucracy.
In fact, for anyone who already has just a valid Cayman Islands driver’s licence, having another ID on top of that seems excessive.
If the government feels it wants to make having a national identification card mandatory, why not simply accept one of several forms of ID. If someone doesn’t have a driver’s licence, work permit card or voter’s registration card, then they could be required to get another type of identification card other than a passport.
The Immigration Department, the Vehicle and Licensing Department, the Election’s Office and whatever agency that is tasked with issuing this new national ID card could work together to make sure all forms of Cayman identification cards resembled each other in terms of the critical information contained.
If that were the case, there would be no real need to require everyone to obtain a national ID card in addition to other forms of acceptable identification.
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