Russell wrote:Wage Slave wrote:I don't get annoyed by being asked for ID at all. I can't see why it is of the slightest offence and some people will use identity fraud to gain an unfair advantage and even commit crime. Nor do I care about being fingerprinted at immigration - provided it is fast and clean. What's the problem? All people are seeking to do is verify your identity in situations where it is important.
The problem is that they justify this by saying it is a countermeasure against terrrrorism, but at the same time they do not require the same from the Japanese population.
In other words, it is discrimination.
In a word, yes. But there's a little more to it IMHO.
I'm not in the least bit bothered by being asked for ID in a situation where it's justified and authorised, such as at immigration or in some banking situations. Everyone gets the same treatment. But hotels are simply not authorised to card everyone who looks foreign and, as mentioned above, there is a need to be cautious about who you give your personal information to. Especially copies of ID documents that could be used for fraud. Hotels are not subject to the kind of data management protocols that organisations like the immigration bureau or the police are (supposedly) subject to, and even then there have been problems with documents being misused by the police. The fact that the police might have requested that a hotel copy ID for all foreigners does not authorise them to do it.
To take that a little further, I was never bothered about being fingerprinted for my old AR card either. But I can assure you that I'm going to go ballistic if some hotel wants to fingerprint me before they'll allow me to stay. Totally hypothetical, to be sure, but sometimes you have to stop and see how far things are away from total stupidity before you just blindly go along. Restaurants requesting ID before they'll serve you a meal, for example? I've never heard of that happening, but there are plenty of examples of foreigners being refused service.
OK, so back to the hotel for a minute. Suppose I refuse to allow them to copy my ID because a) I'm not legally required to do so because I have an address in Japan and b) they don't have the legal authority to make that demand. They could say "well, we need to see your ID to prove that you have an address in Japan." See the Catch 22 emerging here? Suppose I have acquired Japanese citizenship. Would the hotel be justified in demanding to see my ID to prove that I actually have Japanese citizenship when that citizenship supposedly grants me the same rights and protections as every other Japanese citizen, and when they wouldn't even make that demand of someone else who "looks" (but who might not actually be) Japanese?
Things start getting stupid very quickly if you bend the parameters even slightly.