Can it be used without a smartphone aka "portable telescreen"? Do they explicitly guarantee this'll remain the case? If not, you're just being hoodwinked via cheap convenience.
It's actually quite a good idea to have this, even if you have a smartphone, in case that you lose access to it temporarily.
Last year they removed the ability to register[0] yubikey FIDO2 tokens affected by the EUCLEAK 'vulnerability', despite it not posing any security risk even by their own admission, and nobody seems to have cared. The whole thing screams security theater, they require the much more expensive FIDO2 Level 2 keys for no reason (which limited you to just Trustkeys at the time after yubikeys got banned) while their own sites crashes[1] if you give it a secure password.
At the end of the day, if not it's required by law the only other guarantee you have is a broad userbase that will complain if it's taken away and at least at the moment it's clear that no such userbase exists.
[0] https://www.a-trust.at/de/%C3%BCber_uns/newsbereich/20240905...
The answer is yes: which is why banks are licensed and have ombudsmen. As are telcos.
No modern society is going to maintain a parallel government economy to serve the vanishingly small minority who live in fear of private companies.
Perhaps they should (IDK), but they won't.
It's not the _concept_ of private companies. It's specific things that those specific companies do. e.g.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
Meaningful regulation would mean e.g. air-gapped infrastructure so they can't make inadvertent privacy mistakes. And guaranteed service levels, and a service of last resort.
Google have based built a business model without accountability and transparency. Which is fine, as long as we're not forced to use them by the state.
It's not just the specific things that those companies do, it's the (lack of) structure of rights and entitlements that the users have.
Maybe so, I don't know. Though it is worth remarking that "private" banks in the US really are only semi-private. The (admittedly imperfect) regulations that banks are subject to starts to blur the lines between public and private. Not to mention that there are far more banks than smartphone handset-and-OS makers.
> No modern society is going to maintain a parallel government economy to serve the vanishingly small minority who live in fear of private companies.
This is not the only option (though it would potentially be an option for some sufficiently-powerful societies). Other options could include:
1. Multilateral coalitions to do some combination of specify/design/build smartphones and/or their OS
2. Specify a set of user rights and regulate smartphone handset and OS manufacturers accordingly
As a sibling commenter said, this isn't about living in fear of private companies as such. It's about not wanting to be coerced into a system of products that don't preserve liberal rights.
> i can tell that living in a country with great digital services is a lot less stressful
For everyone who deserves to participate in society?
Yup. Look at train tickets in England. For now it's a convenience but you'll notice the law hasn't kept up with the push to have tickets on phones: the law still says you must produce on demand a ticket when requested. So if your battery runs out or your phone crashes or the app glitches or you've annoyed the "safety" department of Google/Apple... it's entirely your problem
A moody ticket inspector is under no obligation really to give you a few minutes to sort it out
:)
First of all, my digital ID is still a physical card. Second, you're on the wrong forum complaining that people need a device to do things in life.
Having an option for digital ID is great, and there are many potential benefits to it. Requiring a modern smartphone for it is wildly out of touch.
I think it's exactly right forum, because we know how unreliable and unmagical are those things and are in a good position to judge the risk of relying on them too much.
If the ID becomes about more than proving right to work, and becomes a daily carry, it's not hard to see the appeal of a government down the line tapping into an always on-hand microphone, GPS, internet enabled device.
Even putting the tin foil hat aside, I and many people like me enjoy leaving the phone at home, and want as little time spent on the thing as possible.