The Spanish ID card is the size of a credit card and much easier to carry around than a passport
MADRID – Plans for a UK digital ID card have been met with pushback from civil rights groups in Britain, but the daily reality of these schemes is far from ominous.
As a British national living in Spain, I am required to have an ID card. It’s the size of a credit card and much easier to carry around in my wallet than a passport. If I were to lose it, it might also be easier to replace.
Spaniards and other foreigners must carry versions of these cards, too.
Almost every day, I use this card for the most routine of things. If I want to buy anything from a rail ticket to a flight or even a computer, I am usually asked for my TIE number. Why? It can be a way to record a business expense or simply to identify myself as the purchaser.
Any dealings with officialdom – and in Spain bureaucracy is a formidable thing best avoided if possible – requires this number. If I want to register with the council, I must show the card. Being on the council register is important because otherwise you cease to exist in the eyes of the authorities.
Beyond this, I need my TIE number to get hospital appointments, pay taxes, send registered mail or if I have any dealings with the police.
When my flat was burgled, the only way to get a criminal report from the police to claim back the cost of the stolen goods was to use my ID card.
The ID card is so much a part of daily life that rather like your own phone number, you memorise it quickly.
Since Brexit, I have had to use the TIE card to stop myself being subject to the 90-day rule which UK tourists face. When I arrive at the airport, I must show the card and declare ‘Soy residente’. This means I can stay for an unlimited amount of time.
Often, officials will want to see the physical card rather than a copy stored on a phone, so you need to have it with you wherever you go.
Admittedly, it was not easy to get the card in the first place. It requires two trips to the police station and plenty of form filling. When I took my sons to get theirs, there was a mix up in the papers and officers initially told me one of them was living illegally in Spain. Thankfully it was quickly resolved.
No one in Spain regards having an ID card as an assault on their civil liberties. By and large, it is seen as a way to avoid using passports and to identify law-abiding citizens.
Of course, this might be a hangover from the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who died in 1975, during whose rule challenging authority was not a given as it is in Britain or other countries.
Yet the reality is my TIE card makes daily life easier, not harder.
