Number cards

[owlfish]

My US SSN card is a flimsy thing of stiff paper, white with a thin, tasteful border of blue around the edge, and a faded crest of the appropriate governmental agency in the background. My name and number are printed on it with the slightly pale black of a dot matrix printer.

My Canadian SIN card is a tidy, official-looking piece of plastic, white, with a thin, tasteful border of red around the edge, and a faded seal of the appropriate governmental agency in the background. My name and number are printed on it in indeliable black, letters slender and tidy and tasteful.

My UK NI card came today. It's jauntily colored, a crimson and blue piece of plastic. So bright! So raucous! With big, bold letters so I can read it halfway across the room! And letters and numbers in relief so paper can be embossed on it. It's a whole different concept of what a card-with-a-number-on-it is for.

Comments

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I know! I couldn't believe it when I got my SSN card - I mean, what on earth is the point of something that looks like it will crumble when it's exposed to sunlight and you are supposed to keep for the rest of your life as your identification in the system? I mean, it should be durable, right? Like the number is supposed to be durable? So you can always have it about you as a handy reference rather than having to worry about it crumbling in your trembling and panicky hands just as you need to fill out that crucial box on the payroll form?

Well, obviously not according to the US psyche, which is why my SSN card lives in a drawer far away from sunlight and my NI card is carried around in my wallet for when I need to fill out forms, but there we go.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

My UK NI card came today. It's jauntily colored, a crimson and blue piece of plastic.

Bloody hell, are they still giving those things out? I had one several years ago, but it was absolutely useless -- no bimetallic strip, no security code, no point. So I cut it in half and dumped it in the bin.

[cynicaloptimist.livejournal.com]

And you never actually USE it anywhere... just recite the number.

[darktouch.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for the proximity chip.

[suslikuk.livejournal.com]

Little Miss Suslik got her first Canadian ID card today. It is indeed quite tasteful, but I feel vaguely let-down at the lack of embedded chips, electrical contact points and RFIDs...