Do I exist?

Snail mail - a thing of the past?

I tried to register with the local doctor’s today. I spend so much of my British rest-time up in Dundee courtesy of the gorgeous Leah, that is made sense to register up here, and transfer all my records up from Bradford.

Proving my identity wasn’t a problem. The well-travelled passport did that for me. But they also asked for something with my address on. This was a problem. And still is. And will be for some time.

I’m staying at Leah’s place. Her name is on the mortgage, the utilities and the tax bills. I don’t get any paperwork through from banks – I do all that online. My driving license hasn’t been updated since I left Bradford as the instructions on there insist that I must give a residential address and I’m not resident in the UK in any one place long enough to make that worthwhile.

This is just me. But given that even those ridiculous new ID cards the government seem hell bent on inflicting on us don’t have to have an address on, how do you prove where you live?

If you rent and pay cash then you may not have any utility bills in your name. Council tax is based on the property so the property owner will get that bill, not the tenant. Online banking – should you opt to have a bank account or credit card – means no paperwork with your address on. Nobody says you have to have a driving license and you could shove any old address on there anyway. Passports have no address. As for phones, how often do you give out your landline rather than your mobile as a primary contact number?

Thing is, people move all the time. I’m an extreme example, but in one period my parents shifted address four times in less than a year as my father chased work. Keeping on top of all the address changes could be a nightmare if you do update everyone, but unless you need to get communications from them what’s the point?

Do we need to give people an address any more? They’re nigh-on impossible to prove anyway and with the way the internet makes us address-anonymous, it’s becoming almost an outdated concept. Even when I was working, I would get most packages delivered to that address rather than my home one as I was more likely to be in the office during delivery hours.

If you went for online billing/banking and therefore didn’t get any paper mail from such places, how many things would you now get “through the door”? And without these, assuming you also don’t have a driving license, how would you prove where you lived?

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