

To start off: Especially when you’re openly drunk at 3am and unable to act normal 😂
You need to be able to identify yourself to law enforcement (and some others like ticket inspectors on trains) when stopped (for a valid reason ofc), I’d say that makes sense? We don’t have a distrust of our (law) enforcement like there is in the US, they’re held to a high standard here.
In a lot of instances they also need a copy of your ID at the bank, your work, etc. This is mostly to prevent identity fraud as far as I’m aware.
More info: NL: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/identificatieplicht / BE: https://www.watwat.be/politie/wie-mag-mijn-identiteitskaart-vragen
It’s literally just a card (almost) everybody keeps on them together with their bank card. In the future we’ll most likely just be able to use digID (in NL) or Itsme (Belgium) as a substitute to identify ourselves.
If you get stopped and don’t have it with you the first time you’ll just get a warning and they’ll just look you up by name instead, after that they fine you for not having it with you. If you do not identify yourself they can take you to the police station until they can identify you, you know the only people who have an issue identifying themselves usually? Drunks and people who either have a history / current issue with police. (You often see this in the videos of our favorite police vlogger: https://www.youtube.com/@PolitieVloggerJanWillem)
I’ll add on to this before you still call it dystopian, for every single time a police officer asks for an ID they have to note that down, its logged that they looked this person up, they have to write why they did it (reminder: every single time) and this can get checked by a superior officer/other instance (depends on country I believe) + anyone who was checked can dispute the check afterwards. They’re very harsh on abuse of the access police have and everything they do for their work is logged systemtically and also by the officers in question (source: I worked for Belgian police IT). Here’s an example of when an officer looked up people he could not justify: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20240215_94848864
I could survive 72 hours on the food I have at home at any time, it won’t be grand tho and I’ll still need electricity to make most of it.
Once I move I’m planning on having a small stockpile (cause I’ll finally have space for it) to last about 2 weeks or so, worst case I just need to eat it and restock it later and best case it saves me a lot of hassle in a crisis.