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I think this is disturbing and should be made illegal—to tie a government service to a single corporate provider in this way. I don't care how much money Apple

I think this is disturbing and should be made illegal—to tie a government service to a single corporate provider in this way. I don't care how much money Apple paid to develop this, or how convenient they made it for the state of Hawaii to adopt their ready-made product, or how inconvenient it would be to a do this in an platform-agnostic way equitable to all of their residents. This is simply a monopolistic abuse of government services, and of the public. Any such service should be free and open to many providers, or not available at all. No fast-lanes for Apple customers. This is not how a fair, equitable public service should work. - "Requires iPhone 8 or later with iOS 16.5 or later, Apple Watch Series 4 or later with WatchOS 9.5 or later" (hidot.hawaii.gov) (I've browsed around this website and there doesn't appear to be any other option equivalent to this one).

kstrauser 2y ago
The search term you're googling for is "ISO/IEC 18013-5", which explains how Apple, Google, and anyone else who wants to implement the standard can do this. Of course, then you'd need to go through a fairly massive audit for the local government to trust that you're not going to immediately upload all your users' PII to the dark web. I'd be shocked if Apple and Google weren't the first ones to successfully complete that part.
lurking_swe 2y ago
I agree with the sentiment. However i’m not too concerned about this specific situation because at least apple seems to have gone about it in a reasonable way. They are forcing each state to build an integration, own the infrastructure, database, and code. Apple is also using a known standard. Using a standard is a good thing, and i’m glad that the state is not beholden to apple to run a core government service. I’m glad apple didn’t push some proprietary BS and try to lock the state into their custom solution. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/15/apple-strict-terms-on-us-states-digital-ids/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/15/apple-strict-terms-on-u... the article uses emotionally charged language like “charges footed to the taxpayer”, but IMO that’s a good thing. It benefits tax payers.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Sort of. Idemia is the entity trying to push proprietary BS and lock the states in!
kanbara 2y ago
chill— it’s an open standard that google and others can implement. everyone will have tbis eventually. the state runs the system.

kstrauser 2y ago

The search term you're googling for is "ISO/IEC 18013-5", which explains how Apple, Google, and anyone else who wants to implement the standard can do this. Of course, then you'd need to go through a fairly massive audit for the local government to trust that you're not going to immediately upload all your users' PII to the dark web. I'd be shocked if Apple and Google weren't the first ones to successfully complete that part.

lurking_swe 2y ago

I agree with the sentiment. However i’m not too concerned about this specific situation because at least apple seems to have gone about it in a reasonable way. They are forcing each state to build an integration, own the infrastructure, database, and code. Apple is also using a known standard. Using a standard is a good thing, and i’m glad that the state is not beholden to apple to run a core government service. I’m glad apple didn’t push some proprietary BS and try to lock the state into their custom solution. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/15/apple-strict-terms-on-us-states-digital-ids/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/15/apple-strict-terms-on-u... the article uses emotionally charged language like “charges footed to the taxpayer”, but IMO that’s a good thing. It benefits tax payers.

Spooky23 2y ago
Sort of. Idemia is the entity trying to push proprietary BS and lock the states in!

kanbara 2y ago

chill— it’s an open standard that google and others can implement. everyone will have tbis eventually. the state runs the system.