On Fri, 30 May 2025 16:49:14 -0700, David Johnson - piperfan at
zarthani.net (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote to Freelance
Traveller:

>Hi Jeff.
>
>> In the Irish Republic, English and Gaelic (Irish dialect) are co-equal
>> official languages. Your name in English is considered the same as your
>> name in Gaelic, and you may request official documents (such as passports
>> or driver's license) in either name. Thus, the gentlman that introduces
>> himself as "John Smith" may well be in perfectly legal possession of ID in
>> the name "Seán Mac Gabhann".

>The interesting question here is, can he be "Seán Mac Gabhann" on his Irish
>passport and yet also, say, file his Irish taxes -- or get an Irish
>driver's licence -- as "John Smith"? In other words, can he -- legally,
>regardless of how he introduces himself -- be both rather than "either"?

The way he explained it, within Eire, yes. Or rather, "mu", as legally it
would be a meaningless question; there's no legal difference between the
two.

>Setting aside the details about the languages in Ireland, you or I could
>likely change our name to "Seán Mac Gabhann" -- or even to "Joan Smith" --
>relatively easily in our respective jurisdictions of residence/citizenship,
>but we couldn't then (legally) be both our "old" and our "new" names.
>(Sure, there'd be a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy but there are likely
>no particular legal hurdles to be overcome -- unless we were changing our
>name in an effort to avoid some existing legal obligation.)
>
>The principle of having a single (legal) identity is pretty
>well-established among most OECD jurisdictions.

But is your legal identity for OECD purposes established by your
identifying yourself as "John Smith", or is it established by an undisputed
use of a national identity number? In other words, if there's an Interpol
want out for someone named "John Smith", should I be immediately arrested
at the border of an OECD jurisdiction if I announce my name as "John
Smith", or will they check my national identification documents to see if I
am - or am not - the "John Smith" named on the Interpol want?

If the OECD jurisdiction checks with the national authority, and questions
whether this Irish passport in the name John Smith, ostensibly corroborated
with an Irish driver's license in the name Seán Mac Gabhann, is legitimate,
the Irish authorities would green-light it. If, on the other hand, the
passport was from the United Kingdom, and the driver's license from
Northern Ireland, with the same difference in names, His Majesty's
Government would be distinctly unhappy.

>If Mr. Mac Gabhann/Smith is able to have "multiple identities" in Ireland,
>I suspect that would cause him more than a bit of difficulty should he
>produce documents with different names when asked to "establish his
>identity" by officials in another OECD jurisdiction. (This is why asking
>someone for "two pieces of ID" is such a common practice.)

And that's the error - it's not "multiple identities", it's multiple labels
for the same identity, and accommodated for by the authority tracking that
identity. I would expect that any OECD jurisdiction would have awareness of
the Irish practice, and accommodate it.

>ObTrav: Hadn't thought about this before, but either the Imperium is
>trampling over "local jurisdiction" like an over-enthusiastic European
>Union bureaucrat when it comes to establishing identity or it is a mess
>trying to do anything "official" -- operate an air/raft, purchase a
>starship, claim an inheritance, pay your "air tax" -- on one planet when
>you're a resident/citizen of a different planet.

Think about how the equivalents would have been done here on Terra, c.
1800CE. No radio, no telephone, no aircraft, not even fast railroads (which
wouldn't help if there were large bodies of water intervening). If the
authorities in Berlin needed to find out just who this gentleman claiming
to be Benjamin Bathurst is, they'd need to send a letter to London, and
might well not expect to hear a response for at least a month.

I would expect that certain documents simply wouldn't be valid _except_ for
establishing a presumption of identity - your Glisten grav vehicle
operator's permit would be worth bupkis for operating a grav vehicle on
Trin; at _best_, it might allow you to skip _some_ of the lessons on
operating grav vehicles, and let you take your "road test" sooner, to get a
Trin permit.

If two worlds have "rules of the road" that are sufficiently similar, the
worlds may enter a compact that would allow your permit from one of the
worlds to be accepted on the other - much like how, in the US, your NY
driver's license is enough to allow you to drive a rental car in WA. If you
change your permanent residential commitment to another state, however, you
usually have a limited time to similarly convert your license. Which may or
may not involve a short written examination and/or a road test, but
generally involves no more than that.

>How does the police officer on Regina know your air/raft operator's permit
>from Rhylanor -- or, heaven forbid, from Dingir in the Solomani Rim -- is
>valid? Sure, perhaps they can match the DNA sample they take from you with
>that provided on your Dingir permit but how do they know the Dingir permit
>itself is valid?

See above; if there's a compact, there won't be a problem; if there's no
compact, no permission. Even today, an IDP doesn't guarantee that your
license will be honored in another country; I can think of several cases
where it _shouldn't_ be, without at least some sort of examination.

(Example: I, as a US citizen, should not be allowed to drive in the UK,
Australia, New Zealand, or Japan without an examination and "road test" on
a closed course. I learned to drive on the right, with the controls on the
left side of the vehicle. Do you really think I'm automatically "safe"
operating a vehicle on the left side of the road with the controls on the
right side of the vehicle?)

>Either that Dinger permit includes security features which align with a
>standard developed and maintained by the Imperium -- or by an Imperium-wide
>non-governmental entity like the Travellers' Aid Society -- or you can't
>(legally) operate an air/raft on Regina without first passing an operator's
>test in the simulator -- and paying a fee -- and being issued a Regina
>operator's permit. . . .

Again, either compact, or the latter (take the examination for issuance of
a Regina permit).

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