When I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago, I paid for most things with cash, and I only used credit cards occasionally. The first time I did so was when I wished to buy a ticket for the Bilbao Guggenheim museum. Upon handing over my Visa card, I was asked for identification. I did what I usually do when I encounter a request of this nature that I am not used to. I smiled, complied with the request by getting out my driver’s licence and handing it over, and asking “Why?”.
The lady behind the counter looked briefly at me, and explained that things were done differently in different countries, and that in Spain they liked to check identification rather than a signature, because signatures are easy to forge and an identification cheque reduces fraud.
As far as it goes, this is probably true. It probably does reduce fraud. (On the other hand, a signature on a credit card slip is as much about making a contract legal as it is about identification. The reason we use such a flimsy means of identification is that the signature requirement wasn’t originally about identification). However, in this particular instance, an identity check was completely unnecessary. I do not expect that many people use stolen credit cards to buy tickets to art museums. However, the custom of asking for identification when credit cards are used in Spain is ingrained, so that it occurs even when it doesn’t make a great deal of logical sense. (I have occasionally been asked to produce identification in Australia and the UK when using credit cards to pay for expensive items of the sort that might be of value to thieves – for instance the laptop computer I am typing on now – but it only seems to happen when it does make some kind of logical sense).
A second thing that I observed in Spain was that a driver’s licence was not the sort of ID they really wanted to see. It was okay in the museum, but later on it became clear that what they meant by “ID” was my passport, although I could probably get away with a driver’s licence because I was a foreigner. In the case of Spanish people, what they wanted to see was a national ID card. Because everyone has to carry one of these around with them, the card’s use has expanded to the point that it is difficult to use a credit card without one. I don’t know precisely what the role of the compulsory ID card is under Spanish law, but Spanish people seem to need it to go about their day to day lives.
Of course, Spain actually was a fascist state until the mid 1970s, and quite probably the actual point of the card was that it would be needed for people to go about their day to day lives. I think the point may be that once such a card is in place and its use is part of everyday life, it is very hard to get rid of it. For that reason, introducing such a card is really not something to be done lightly.
It certainly smacks of the amazing inflation of the use of US Social Security Numbers, which the politicos of the times assure everyone would not become a “national ID number.” But it did, of course.