France doesn't exactly have a national identity register. Many other European countries do (like Belgium where I live) but France has a collection of registers, one or more per administration, each limited to the relevant information needed for that administration to perform its duties, and sharing information between them is forbidden by law outside of a few cases.
Thus, many people vote in a different place than where they live and where they are registered for the tax admin. The address on one's identity card is often obsolete by a decade. The address on my passport is yet another one, obsolete as well but that doesn't actually matter because it's never used as a proof of residence.
Social security is the closest thing there is in France to a national register, but no other admin or organisation is allowed to use the social security number. And the contact address they have can very well be out of date as well.
Law enforcement came to "my door" a few months ago (to ask if I could help them with logs of my server on a case) and they actually were lucky because they came to my parents' house (an address I had forgotten to update in my host's contact info) just as I was on holidays there, but they didn't even know I had been living in Belgium for years. Since I wasn't a suspect, they had no right to actually know any info from the various national administrations.
I lived in Canada for a year and some and it seemed to me to be basically the same, although maybe I didn't stay long enough to know more about how it works there.
I think he means the national ID card system, which is indeed a national identity register. It was actually mandatory to have one until 1955 and while that's not the case anymore it is in practice.
For elections, this is important combined with the requirement in France to show a photo ID at the polling station (well, this is France so the obligation is not always one, but still...)
In the US, requirements to show a photo ID vary by state, some don't have any, afaik. In the UK no photo ID is asked at all. Neither country has ID cards.
> France doesn't exactly have a national identity register.
There's so many of them there isn't need for one centralized file, especially since news laws keep interconnecting all these files. There's so many files on everyone in France if you believe in "human rights" that'll be hard to fathom.
Since the nazi occupation (Vichy government), there is a national identity card. There's also the police file with all suspects, victims and witnesses (yes, all of them combined). Then there's the police biometrics file. The semi-secret "Base élèves" file snooping on every child going to school (which by law is quasi-mandatory). And so many others i can't list them all here.
France is pretty much a police state in all regards. If you're lucky enough to only interact with lowly assholes from the local police, it's easy enough to discard the concept. But when you see the government had to contract Palantir because they gather so much data on people they can't process it...
Thus, many people vote in a different place than where they live and where they are registered for the tax admin. The address on one's identity card is often obsolete by a decade. The address on my passport is yet another one, obsolete as well but that doesn't actually matter because it's never used as a proof of residence.
Social security is the closest thing there is in France to a national register, but no other admin or organisation is allowed to use the social security number. And the contact address they have can very well be out of date as well.
Law enforcement came to "my door" a few months ago (to ask if I could help them with logs of my server on a case) and they actually were lucky because they came to my parents' house (an address I had forgotten to update in my host's contact info) just as I was on holidays there, but they didn't even know I had been living in Belgium for years. Since I wasn't a suspect, they had no right to actually know any info from the various national administrations.
I lived in Canada for a year and some and it seemed to me to be basically the same, although maybe I didn't stay long enough to know more about how it works there.