u/SantalumAlbum199

I thought I would try to create a clean-slate* design for a theoretical ID card, driving licence and EHIC Card (NHS card) for an independent Scottish state in the EU.
*clean-slate in the sense that while these take inspiration from existing designs and prescriptions, there is no Scottish equivalent that could be drawn upon.

Notes on the designs –

1. I have assumed that Scotland would be in the EU by this point and that the EU has not changed the regulations regarding travel documents, driving licences, and EHICs from the current standard.
2. I have assumed that the likely 3-letter code would be "SCT", as no other country has it as yet and it is not reserved. The 2-letter code would be more tricky as all the sensible ones beginning with "S" are taken – I have thus assumed that the likely allocation will be "AB" from Alba.
3. I have decided to include both Scottish Gaelic and Scots for the designs. In either case, the translations were done with the aid of Google translate and Claude ... so there are likely some errors.
4. Specifically with regards to Scots, there were numerous challenges involved as Scots orthography is a pain at the best of times. I have tried to match the style used in the Scots accompanying notes to the Scottish Languages Bill 2025 [now Act] as published by the Scottish Government on the Scottish Parliament's website. If you are a Scottish Gaelic or Scots (or Doric (if you consider that to be separate)) speaker, please let me know of any corrections that should be made.
5. The backside (technically front as per EU regulations) of the EHIC card would function as a NHS health card – primarily for the holder to know their CHI number and for first-aid responders to know what [not] to administer.
6. The designs were made in Inkscape, except for the image of the nominal bearer which was generated using AI as I couldn't fathom using someone's actual face.

DISCLAIMERS:

1. I am neither Scottish nor British and have no strong opinion on the matter of Scottish independence and neither should my opinion on it matter. I have always wanted to try out a clean(ish)-slate idea, and since I have been living in Scotland for a few years now, it was kinda natural to use this as my test-case.
2. Before someone comes at me, this is not strategically timed in its release after the Scottish Parliament elections – I have been working on this on and off for a few months now and it just so happens to have reached a satisfactory result about now.
3. I do not want to be drawn into the whole ID card debate – in my personal opinion, keep it optional and not mandatory.
4. I will likely also be putting out my design for a Scottish Passport as well, though it might take a while as I'm still trying things out in terms of the designs for the visa pages.

Just thought that Indian ID cards could do with a bit of a redesign. This was principally motivated by two factors –

i. Indian state level IDs that are meant to be used throughout the country (e.g. driving licences) are not standardised, and hence can be quite difficult to work with across jurisdictions. This is especially true since India does not (at least from my cursory research) maintain databases such as PRADO or Edisontd which could be used to consult and verify (at least superficially) the authenticity of a document by a non-governmental individual .

ii. The unnecessary duplication of ID cards, and the forcing of ID numbers into separate cards. A good example of this is the PAN card, which lists a person's PAN (number), essentially a tax id number. This should ideally simply be issued in a letter form (Example the NI number in the UK), or attached to a different ID (Example Portugal).

The other issue, principally found with the Aadhar card (and associated system), is –

i. the lack of a forced requirement for the expiry of biometric and demographic credentials i.e., the lack of an expiry date, which allows for details to go badly out of alignment over time,

ii. the lack of security of the card itself. The standard process used by many countries is to have the personal code (Aadhar number) & the actual document number be required for verification (possibly also a card PIN). If the actual card were to be lost then, that could be flagged across the system through the document number.

While I understand that there are practicality issues with this given the scale of the Aadhar system, this should have been something addressed over a period of time. Especially by introducing biometric id cards themselves to allow for offline verification.

Finally, is the issue of foreign nationals (legally) resident in India, and the lack of clear documentation available online as to the associated visa documents – while I believe that there exist a residence certificate, I haven't actually seen one online so I just designed a new one.

To "address" these issues, at least from a document design perspective, I present the following (made through Inkscape) –

1. An Aadhar card (just titled as ID Card) but now in the style of EU ID cards complying with the standards of an ICAO 9303 TD which also incorporates the PAN number:

i. An Aadhar card design for an Indian national,

ii. An Aadhar card design for a Nepali/Bhutanese national resident in India (freedom of movement),

iii. An Aadhar card design for Tibetan Refugees present in India (entitled to certain additional benefits – hopefully the Indian government will at some point actually formalise this in legislation...).

[When it comes to updating the Address, I suggest the French approach (as opposed to the German) of letting the card say whatever but being able to update it online with a possible online extract to show the present address]

2. An OCI card (as an actual card and not a faux passport) and Residence Permit design (roughly ICAO 9303 compliant).

3. A unified form of driving licence which can be issued (again, this is heavily inspired by the EU standard format) across India with suitable modifications for each State/UT.

Note: for the Aadhar card & driving licence (to a lesser extent), only the back side is in the regional language to cut down on theoretical production costs (polycarbonate cards are made in layers and it would be simpler to only have to modify 1 (back) instead of 2 (front+back) layers).

Disclaimer: The faces of people present are generated through AI as I couldn't fathom using a real person's face. The translations into Kannada and Bhutia (Sikkimese) were done with the aid of Google Translate and Claude so ... you're forewarned?