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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

Again though, you have not answered the question.

I am not particularly opposed to a paper only process for the tiny number of people who have some legitimate reason they cannot use the main process. But that isn't what is demanded so why should we go beyond the bare minimum to allow those users access?

Have some loaner phones (or similar devices) at immigration and let people get on with it? No, people who refuse tech must have all the benefits and not be left behind despite explicitly choosing to be left behind? Why?

Also, there is nothing "elite" about owning a smart phone. Especially not if you travel internationally. Pretending otherwise is just silly.

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This is not a refusal of tech for the sake of refusal of tech. Nor does it have anything to do with being left behind.

A smart phone is a very powerful and practical device. But if we don't take care to prevent it, a smart phone can easily become a dangerous surveillance device. This downside needs to be regulated effectively.

I'm not saying you necessarily need to be afraid of your smart phone in the long term. But currently it still feels very much like a wild west, with everyone making surveillance and privacy land grabs. The protections are -as yet- sparse.

I think lawmakers need to be more careful and coordinated on this. Possibly I could see people carrying sensitive credentials on their smart phone, but only if it is then also illegal to search it. Or -vice versa- make it legal for law enforcement to search a smart phone, but then make it illegal to store sensitive credentials on it.

Allowing both at once is a potential recipe for disaster, because searching the phone can easily lead to a compromise of the credentials (think eg. private keys).

To answer your question directly: I think it is pretty sane for people to want to wait out the regulatory landscape here, and not immediately pick up every novelty for the sake of novelty.

[ That said, possibly the overton window on carrying papers has shifted a bit in the past 100 years. At one point people thought passports were a temporary WW I thing! : https://theconversation.com/when-world-leaders-thought-you-s... ]

I think we're conflating a few different issues here.

Smartphones are Powerful surveillance devices whether used for passports or not. I would like that to be more regulated (or regulated at all in fact). But that isn't what's under discussion.

And since a (paper) passport already involves being tracked as you cross a border having a passport on your phone adds no extra privacy breaches.

Similarly I am subject to warrantless, suspicionless search at all border crossings already (including my phone). So using a phone for my passport costs me nothing here either.

I don't object to general wariness about surveillance, in fact I encourage it. But this is not a form of additional surveillance...

To me it seems people are just hiding behind catch phrases like "elitism" because they don't like the idea but have not actually bothered to consider it (not you, but other replies here).

* If the phone is compromised, now people can access your passport outside the border zone too. This can include critical personal information (PII) that is not intended to be shared.

* Not all borders in all countries track you. Specifically EU internal borders typically do not.

* Not all borders in all countries subject you to a routine warrant-less search, not all borders conduct a phone search. (IMHO no borders should, but that's a different story). Specifically EU internal borders typically do not.

We need less of our lives to enter the digital realm, not more.

1. Again, that's your opinion, others like me disagree. Either cover WHY you think that is true you are sort of saying "I don't like it and I don't have a reason"

2. This is about the smallest imaginable amount of your life being added to the digital realm. All the data in question is ALREADY in there, on government computers when you get a paper passport and that is what is actually used at border crossings. No one cares about the paper passport except as a receipt for a DB entry. So nothing is actually being moved digital. We are just turning off some printers...

That official identity documents requiring a smartphone is the "smallest imaginable amount" is questionable. With this proposal I can not even go on vacation without a smartphone.

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I still think humans should be able to do basic life actions without a smartphone.

Right not you cannot go on vacation without having all your info on a government DB shared with 100 other governments. In future the same will be true but instead of a paper receipt you will get one on an app. That is all that is changing.

And you can still do all this with your paper work. It will just take longer, and be more expensive and if you lose it you're screwed.

you still get bottle neck at security scanning anyway so idk why rfid passport is needed

It's harder to fake the paper part (non-rfid ones just use a barcode or text reader). That's the only read difference between older/rfid ones. They're all basically the same as shop barcodes: the customs guy scans it, then his computer looks you up in some DB. You could be looked up just as quickly by doing name/nationality/dob etc. Or your smartphone. But people like paperwork...

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