The fundamental proposition on which all of English culture flows from is that of innocence. For example, in court, you do not have to prove your innocence because you are presumed innocent.

In the case of ID cards and the like, the state does not rule over the populace, it rules on behalf of the populace. I am innocent and they work for me. Hence, I do not have to prove to some random government agent who I am unless it is relevant to the task they perform, e.g.

- the police have a reasonable and justifiable suspicion that I am engaged in criminal activity - an immigration officer may only ask for my details when I am crossing a border or, again, have some reasonable and justifiable suspicion that I am in need of deportation etc. - Or perhaps I just need some documents from my local municipal office, and they rightly ask who I am and to prove it before giving out my private info.

Me going about my business is no business of the government's until I start abusing the rules.

The opposite view is that:

- I am ruled over - Any agent of the government can question me and prevent me from going about my business

Of course, in practice, the application of such liberal principles like not requiring ID to go about my day are often not done well, but to change the principle is to change the entire character of the most fundamental aspects of Englishness. You'll note, much of the continent lurches between different forms of collectivist oppressive government whereas, until of late, the UK has not. This is because of the lack of this fundamental principle there, I am sure of that, and those calling for these kind of ID laws, digital or otherwise, are not to be entertained.

The most interesting case will be the USA, where they still care about the principles of English liberty, far more than the English do.