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Comment by shirro | Hacker News Reader

I have had one of these for years in South Australia (app store release data may 2017). Our car rego is all digital as well which used to cause confusion interstate as we don't have rego stickers. I don't adopt a lot of digital technology like social media because I think it is of dubious value with potential risks but nfc payments and a digital licence lets me travel with just my phone which suits me really well. I hate carrying a wallet.

One potential issue with having this on your phone is that you are unlocking your phone and handing it to the police which could be a problem for some people. Though people can still carry a card.

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> One potential issue with having this on your phone is that you are unlocking your phone and handing it to the police

FWIW Android has a (somewhat hidden) "pin app" function that prevents users from switching to a different app without entering the lock code.

Same with iphone. Accessibility settings -> Guided access. Can turn on a setting so that when you triple click the home button it locks use to that app until you unlock.

Thank you for teaching me something today. Had no clue about this feature and it looks pretty interesting.

That being said... while testing it I was able to escape to the Messages app by clicking a share btn in an app, or long pressing a link in a webkit ui object to share the link.

From the Messages i was able to get to contacts and see contact info. If you create a 'new message' with an existing contact it will actually load all the previous messages for that contact. I assume it would also load group messages for a group as this behavior is present in normal messages mode.

At first i didn't think images where loading, but if I scrolled up till it had to load in older messages it shows images

Same for other apps that register in the share functionality. I was also able to go to the 'more' and enable other apps like Slack and One Note and was able to gather a lot of details from the dialogs they provide.

Messages seams to have the most 'out of bounds' gonna play with this some more.

I wanna also say I have a kinda older iPhone, running 12.1.4 in case some of this has been improved.

Still happens on 13.2.2. Looks like they should disable the share sheet in it.

Or require your PIN to access the share sheet in this scenario.

Thanks. Just turned it on and learned how to use it. A few too many steps to the UI. I think I would prefer if an app like this was pinned from the moment it was opened.

> One potential issue with having this on your phone is that you are unlocking your phone and handing it to the police which could be a problem for some people. Though people can still carry a card.

NSW resident. If I was driving I'd carry my physical license which I'd hand to police. If I was heading out by foot to a pub, bar, bottle shop or tobacconist I'd use my phone because that's how I pay for things. I'm not young looking but if I were, at least the phone would save me carrying a wallet.

Opal, NSW's public transport payment system, works directly with contactless payment i.e. credit cards, debit cards, phones (all phones - hi Myki!), smart watches and, unsurprisingly, dedicated Opal cards. Making licenses app-based opens up the option to leave home without anything but your phone.

In NSW you are not required to hand it over to police.

From the site: "You don’t need to hand over your device to the licence checker. If a licence checker is struggling to view your digital driver licence, adjust the tilt of your device or turn up your brightness settings. "

Isn't this the same state where they have been strip searching 12 year old girls without a parent or guardian? Most police I have encountered are great but good to know how to protect your phone incase you encounter one of the rare idiots.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/06/revea...

Although as others have posted, apparently the police are not allowed to touch the phone, but people are used to handing over the current plastic license so would likely hand over their phone unless instructed otherwise.

It was news to me that you can lock android and iOS to a certain app so that would be a good thing to do if your license is requested.

The worst thing about this system is that if your battery dies, well you can’t prove your identity.

I guess cops carry chargers now ?

Do you have to show your license in NSW?

In the UK we have to give our name and address, then turn up to a police station within 7 days with our license.

In europe we have phone app for public transport, in my city, if your phone is out of charge they will help you charge it so you can show ticket to them.

"here, plug your phone into this USB cable that I happen to have in my car. Honest, it's just a charger..."

Although I was a first day adopter of the new NSW digital license, I'm only going to use it as a backup for my physical license. I really don't trust the NSW government, and I've come across enough dodgy cops in this state to know better.

Most cops are fine, but the ones that aren't can destroy you for the rest of your life.

Most phones do nothing (except charge) when plugged, until you actively choose the option (file sharing, usb debugging,...).

Usb ports are the attack surface for standard gvt issue phone snarfers. Thought this was common knowledge.

Your car can provide energy.

The police may not touch the phone.

And when you tell them no what's the chance they listen and don't suddenly volunteer you for a search.

Can you reference the legal documents regarding this?

Photo Card Act 2005, Section 13B Use of digital Photo Card

"Despite any other provision of this section, a person who displays or purports to display a digital driver licence is not required to give or hand over, to the person who is requiring the driver licence to be produced or handed over, the mobile phone or other electronic device on which the digital driver licence is displayed or purported to be displayed."

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2005/20/part2a/sec...

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