22 ms·

The paper passport's days are numbered

• rldjbpin 2y ago
  this is yet another step in the frog-cooking approach to identity management. from a weak passport owner's perspective, our biometrics are already taken away whenever you apply for a visa. as shown in the article, for domestic purposes too this is done, so this is just a matter of convenience to nudge everyone to give it up now. with the above fallacy, one would be ok to adopt this system for international travel. but i wonder if adopting this system in all air travel would be the additional notch up in the temperature of digital privacy.
• necovek 2y ago
  Other than standardizing on equipment and root certificates, none of this is new technology. The challenge is how do you revoke a certificate which was used to issue millions of ID cards/passports once it leaks? Does everybody suddenly not have a "valid" ID proof? Or how do you scale non-digitized operations up on-demand once some of this fails? When it comes to privacy, government can even not keep any of the PII in a central place: it just needs to get it for signing and never needs to store it. Basically, you can have a device that wirelessly transmits government-signed data containing your facial data and other PII, and upon validation, that data would be used for facial recognition and ID verification. (Like JWT tokens for those familiar with them)
  • sureIy 2y ago
    What certificate are you talking about? The document is your face
    • gruez 2y ago
      "Your face" doesn't tell border officials anything important about you. For that, you need a travel document with relevant biographical information (eg. name, date of birth), along with a picture of your face so they know who to associate that information with. Finally, to ensure that you can't make a fake document that looks like a real document, there's a PKI system where all the information on the document is digitally signed by the country issuing the travel document.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • sureIy 2y ago
        That's far down the line. The examples in the article just store the document data in national database. In both examples (Finland and Singapore) you register online before the trip and then still show up with your passport. Singaporeans just show up with their face because their face is already linked to their government ID, stored locally. This can be done by any country after pre-registering your regular passport. All of this is trivial to implement. There's still no mention of full digital validation.
        • Muromec 2y ago
          Well, the thing is -- after doing the whole ICAO PKI into the passport (which already happened) and keeping the trace in the local government database somebody realised there is no point to issue an expensive unforgable paper copy of it, since the digital artifact bundled with it (theoretically) provides stronger security. So instead of issuing ICAO PKI into the paassport, you can just have a dumb app generating a QR code with it or A4 paper extract.
    • mhandley 2y ago
      How does that work for identical twins?
      • Muromec 2y ago
        The same way as it does now. The face is checked against the identity claim, not against the global lookup, which can't reliably work anyway.
        • timewizard 2y ago
          So there's no non-repudiation making it no different than a paper document.
          • Muromec 2y ago
            Sorry I can’t really parse the comment, but I do agree it’s no different from a paper document, because why would it?
      • BurningFrog 2y ago
        It's hard to think of any scheme that fully works for that, unless you mandate distinctive body modification like tattoos or scars.
  • out_of_protocol 2y ago
    > how do you revoke a certificate which was used to issue millions of ID cards/passports once it leaks? Does everybody suddenly not have a "valid" ID proof? You need cutoff date and some kind of public trail log to prevent backdating new certificates. This can be done via short-lived secondary certs derived from a root one, logged publicly
    • trilbyglens 2y ago
      Sounds a lot like a blockchain
      • gruez 2y ago
        It really isn't, aside from using public key cryptography. There isn't even a concept of a "block" (ie. a linked list where each node is cryptographically linked to a prior node).
      • out_of_protocol 2y ago
        Blockchain can be the store of public data (dump public keys of intermediate certs into blockchain), but it's not necessary, public trail log is enough to call on backdated cert issuing
    • Muromec 2y ago
      That's pretty much how it works now, except they are not logged publicly.
    • quotemstr 2y ago
      > You need cutoff date and some kind of public trail log to prevent backdating new certificates. You might be able to do it without a public log by using an RFC 3161 (TSP) secure timestamp facility like the unfortunately named https://www.freetsa.org/ https://www.freetsa.org/. Basically, we want to trust identity attestations ("I am Bill Clinton and this is my face") made by a compromised CA between the time the CA certificate was created and an estimate (hopefully a conservative one) of the date of compromise. We want to distrust any certificates signed outside this time range. This way, in the event of a CA compromise, we don't have to revoke everyone's certificate after a CA compromise. I think we can implement this security model by having the CA ask the TSP server to countersign each certificate that the CA issues. The TSP would sign a hash of the whole CSR, including both identity ("I am Bill Clinton") and biometric (bill-clinton.jpg) information. Anyone can use the TSP's attestation to provide that the TSP server witnessed this combination of inputs at a specific time. Sure, if you've compromised the CA, you can issue a certificate saying "I am Bill Clinton", but to do so, you need to either use a genuine, up-to-date TSP attestation, giving away the game, or you need to use an old TSP attestation, forcing you to use exactly the original inputs to the TSP. Using the exact inputs wouldn't help you: you want to issue a certificate saying "I am Bill Clinton" with attacker.jpg as the face, not bill-clinton.jpg. The latter won't help you do anything: you don't look like Bill Clinton and you don't have his private key. An attacker would have to compromise both the CA and the TSP server to pull off a passport forgery. And you can make this process even harder by requiring multiple independent TSP servers to countersign certificates.
  • layer8 2y ago
    > The challenge is how do you revoke a certificate which was used to issue millions of ID cards/passports once it leaks? Does everybody suddenly not have a "valid" ID proof? Revocations always come with a revocation date. Only passports issued after that date would be invalidated. The issuance dates could be proofed with cryptographic timestamps. There is a trade-off between false positives and false negatives when choosing the revocation date of the issuer certificate. With OCSP, you could also revoke all the individual IDs that are not known-good (known to have been issued legitimately). Of course, a world-wide interoperable passport scheme is unlikely to be designed with such an elaborate verification system, and maintaining registries of all legitimate IDs comes with its own risks. In case of a massive breach, it’s more likely that everyone will have to get a new passport and re-prove their identity for that using separate means.
    • xvilka 2y ago
      > In case of a massive breach, it’s more likely that everyone will have to get a new passport and re-prove their identity for that using separate means. If you have a big family with the ownership of many assets - a car, house or an apartment, bank accounts, mortgage, various subsidies, and so on, the number of instances that you need to go to change your old passport data to a new one could quickly grow up to one hundred, depending on a country. The biggest problem with reissuing a passport is that its number and issuance date change, forcing you to jump through many hoops to continue life as before.
      • jltsiren 2y ago
        That sounds weird. Which country abuses passports like that? From my perspective, a passport is just an identity document. It's not a source of identity. When you get a new passport, your identity doesn't change, so you don't have to update your information anywhere. Immigration officials may be the main exception, if you live outside the country of your citizenship. Or maybe there is some hassle if you need to transfer a visa to the new passport.
        • Joker_vD 2y ago
• seydor 2y ago
  Well no, there is still no passport app in EU or the US. It's not dying, but it's going to
  • Kon-Peki 2y ago
    The US has had a self-service border crossing app for years. It is aimed at pleasure boaters and requires an in-person interview once a year to use.
  • wenc 2y ago
    There is a passport app that lets you clear US customs much more quickly: (no pre-approval needed, only US/Canada citizens are eligible at present) https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/mobile-passport-control https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/mobile-passport-contr... But you still need to carry the paper passport as backup.
    • jdsnape 2y ago
      just to note you can also use it as a non-US citizen if you are arriving on a Visa waiver programme (ESTA)
      • rorylawless 2y ago
        Additionally, Legal Permanent Residents of the US can use it too.
      • shrx 2y ago
        It says "Returning Visa Waiver Program Applicants". What does "returning" mean in this context?
• ksec 2y ago
  I wonder if we can have both, the checking being done digitally. While still having an actual stamp on the paper passport. I know this sounds absurd but I dislike everything digital with no real, physical record I can keep.
  • sureIy 2y ago
    I don't mind my passport lasting longer due to fewer stamps. What I don't like is that more and more countries require pre-registration. They can add as many questions as they want and the form can be as crappy as it needs to be. Hopefully this will be fully automated at check in though. They already have all the info there, don't ask me twice. Send me an email if you won't accept me into your country. It can have its upsides.
    • Kon-Peki 2y ago
      Boaters, especially in northern Michigan and northern Washington (where the various small islands can almost seem randomly distributed between Canada and US), can get an app on their phone (the "CBP ROAM" app) to handle their frequent border crossings. A user creates a "trip" on the phone at the beginning of the day and then presses a button every time they cross the border. If the US has a problem they do a video call through the app. It's been around for a few years.
      • mistrial9 2y ago
        > can get an app on their phone ok, do you want that, or are you required to have that.. Uniform servicemen already have made agreements about their data, locations, records, check-ins ad infinitum.. but citizens have not made those agreements.. So uniform services will just make those agreements mandatory.. there is no end to this. especially irksome is piling on requirements for constant check-in among law abiding people who own property and pay taxes.. while somehow hundreds of thousands can walk around living in parks in the South ? I am not even extreme on this topic .. it just defies common sense and says Slippery Slope in giant letters
• anonymouscaller 2y ago
  New technology in the airport is incredibly scary. I recently flew between the United States and Canada and it is mind boggling how trivial passports are already becoming. I began by looking into a camera on a kiosk, where as soon as my face was recognized, I walked up to the CBP officer and he verified my identify with a quick look at my passport and ticket. I don't see the passport lasting much longer, at last in the US, Canada, and Europe.
  • eszed 2y ago
    Singapore is even further ahead, with no human in the (regular) loop at all. I walked up to the first barrier, it scanned my face and opened. My name appeared on the screen inside, before I inserted my passport. Then the system "thought" about it for a few seconds, and then the second barrier opened. I appreciated the complete lack of a passport line (going and coming), but got squicked out about the heuristics the system (might) run through before it let me through. That's where all of this is headed, though.
    • gruez 2y ago
      >but got squicked out about the heuristics the system (might) run through before it let me through. I think you're overestimating how sophisticated the system is. Most online check-in processes require you to input your passport details. In-person check-in probably results in the gate agent doing something similar. If the arrival airport has this information, it's pretty easy to look up the corresponding face on file (that you provided when you applied for a passport), and use that to generate a list of faces you need to match against. From there, it's only a matter of matching a given face to a face in that set. Moreover, given that arrivals are staggered, that set is going to be relatively small. A wide-body aircraft holds around 300 passengers. If 3 of them arrive at the same time, to the same passport control point, that's only around 1000 faces to match against. That's far easier to do than trying to match against all faces in the entire country, for instance.
      • eszed 2y ago
        Sure, the recognition step is fairly simplistic. It's not inconceivable, however, that the system connects to whatever other dossier(s) have been built against my identity. Even before we consider ML facial recognition by public cameras (probably not yet possible at scale?), the Singaporean SIM card I bought was connected to my passport, which gives them my location: both absolute and relative to anyone I might have spent time around. I mean, I was a normal tourist, and not doing anything shady whilst I was there, but... False positives exist, and I wouldn't have wanted to have been pulled out of the queue for questioning about something I couldn't possibly have explained. Singaporeans seem to have a different point of view about surveillance, however. Even the (fairly low-key) human rights activist I chatted with thought it was all great, and said something along the lines of "the cameras keep us safe". "Privacy" as we tend to think about it on this board may be a mainly Anglo-Saxon concern, for what that's worth.
• no_wizard 2y ago
  Passports can die when they merge the passport with my drivers license, at least here in the US. It would be great if we had a universal ID program. Even better if that program also replaced Social Security numbers. Alas, it'll likely never happen in my life time.
  • DaSHacka 2y ago
    > Passports can die when they merge the passport with my drivers license, at least here in the US. They've been trying to do this, with "Real IDs" https://www.usa.gov/real-id https://www.usa.gov/real-id Not exactly what you're asking for, but it's more akin to making Drivers licenses like passport cards
  • jltsiren 2y ago
    Passports can die when there is reliable internet everywhere in the world. Including remote wilderness areas you paid a lot of money to visit and disaster zones where basic infrastructure has failed.
    • eszed 2y ago
      How close are the various satellite systems to achieving this?
      • lazide 2y ago
        Not even close. Half the time you can’t even get workable mobile internet at customs.
        • rad_gruchalski 2y ago
          Isn’t that by design?
          • lazide 2y ago
            In a few spots - but not usually. Unless you count terrible design as intentional design.
• bausgwi678 2y ago
  It would be a nice start if the EU could stop inking passports on the way in and out as well as computer recording it all. Such a waste of time and ink
  • latexr 2y ago
    > if the EU could stop inking passports on the way in and out I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Where are you traveling from? I never had my EU passport inked when traveling to the UK or US. Within the Schengen Area I never needed a passport.
    • sokoloff 2y ago
      I’m a US citizen and get stamped on the way in and out of Schengen area every time. I think they do the same for UK post-Brexit.
    • switch007 2y ago
      They need to track time in the Schengen zone for non-EU citizens, which is what the stamps are mostly for AIUI. Common in/out the Schengen with my UK passport post Brexit - got lots of stamps. Though it varies by country
      • RyJones 2y ago
        Every round trip from the USA to Ukraine gets six stamps for me. I’m going to have to renew about five years early on this passport. I’ll get the fat passport next time.
    • ascorbic 2y ago
      My UK passport has been stamped on every EU entry I've made since Brexit, except Ireland.
      • rswail 2y ago
        Like every other non-EU citizen when entering/exiting the Schengen area. As an AU passport holder it's been like that for at least 30 years.
• foundart 2y ago
  I wonder how paperless passports would work for folks with multiple passports.
  • sureIy 2y ago
    The title is hyperbolic. You still do need a passport and there's no such thing as a digital passport. You need to register your document at some point, so that one is what you will use. Using a different passport would mean logging in and changing your data; your user will be unchanged.
    • foundart 2y ago
      The article is speculating about the future based on current trends, so of course there is not yet a digital passport. The current experiments seem to be fractured across governments and I would be very surprised to see a centralized system (as your response seems to imply) come into play until well after various governments introduce their own digital systems.
    • Muromec 2y ago
      It's not even future, it's rolled out in Ukraine to millions of people and it uses silly face id over the camera to authenticate you for remote things. You can't cross borders with it, as it requires amending the treaties, but otherwise it's a thing.
      • sureIy 2y ago
        > You can't cross borders with it, Ok so it's not a passport. What is being described by the article are just national identities based on physical cards. Estonia has been doing that for a very long time as well.
  • matwood 2y ago
    Also, I had to leave my passport at a consulate to get a visa added. How would that work? It seems the coordination alone would make something like moving to full digital take a long time to happen.
• throw748499 2y ago
  Ukraine cancelled consular services for all men abroad. It is not possible to renew passport without risking freedom. I think many men will keep their paper passports with 10 year expiration date. And renew it every year "just in case".
  • lifestyleguru 2y ago
    The outcome of ubiquitous digitalization will vary depending on number of orifices in your crotch. Number of orifices will be verified by medical commission when you reach adulthood. In case of Ukrainian men this ruling likely impacts only those non affluent, their rich kids seem to have a good time in EU and around the world.
    • Muromec 2y ago
      That's the usual thing. You either cross the border before turning 18, or you have fathered three kids (surprisingly, they don't have to be from the same woman) or you have a special exception for special reasons and promise to be back.
  • Muromec 2y ago
    Last time I checked, the story was something like -- you need to log into the system, make you personal details up to date so they can summon you for the best job in the world, but they don't actually summon anyone from abroad yet for obvious reasons.
  • mcfedr 2y ago
    Risking freedom? You mean doing your part for freedom for all
    • devops99 2y ago
      Sounds great. When do you land there? You already purchased your one-way ticket to there, did you not?
• jmclnx 2y ago
  Only if : 1. I get a Free Smart Phone for use for this 2. The service is Free Passport books have a 1 time fee and for 10 years in the country I live in. I expect the same for Phone use.
  • smitty1e 2y ago
    We can label the service 'Free', for "17 layers of indirection in paying for it" values of 'Free'. Not much above emotional attachment is free here under the sun.
    • lazide 2y ago
      In my experience, emotional attachment is often the most expensive thing there is.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • lifestyleguru 2y ago
    Believe me you don't want free smartphone from the government. I'm astonished how easily people accepted to load everything onto their private smartphones. This happened so fast, within one decade.
    • pessimizer 2y ago
      A free smartphone only for this. I don't want it on my phone.
      • undersuit 2y ago
        I like my RSA fob, they changed the app name one day and I wasted time working with the IT department.
      • steelframe 2y ago
        Yup. You can always keep it powered off and in a Faraday sleeve until it's time to use it at the border. It should be possible to distribute a device that's smaller and lighter than a passport, and I'd be all for it, so long as it's at least as reliable and/or if there's a fallback process when it isn't.
• fredski42 2y ago
  I remember a sci-fi short story from a long time ago where everything that defined you as a person was digitized and available in your smartphone. The story was about a person loosing his smartphone and coming into all kinds of admin horror to regain his identity but eventually ended up broke sleeping under the bridge..
  • oniony 2y ago
    Sounds like a marginally more modern Brazil.
    • namaria 2y ago
      You don't end up under a bridge in Brazil for losing your phone. You end up there by being born in the wrong family or part of town.
      • oniony 2y ago
        I meant the movie.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • jorgesborges 2y ago
    This is how I feel leaving the house without my phone.
  • dmwilcox 2y ago
    I feel like this was my last week. Welcome to the UK as an American tech worker. You use a custom Android ROM, too bad, you can't setup your visa. Want to book something on Ryan Air too bad, "computer says no" (really I should never do this again for many reasons). The level of expectation that your phone is a set of handcuffs that you do not own is high. If you own your device and not vice versa, things just don't work in this world. And honestly why would I want a computer that I didn't control anyway?
• pjmlp 2y ago
  Every time I try such machines, I end up talking to a police officer, instead of being recognised. Additionally, passports don't need to be charged.
• jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  Google working to build web standards to let companies demand & verify state issued credentials too. This feels like such a scary scary step for the internet, letting companies demand strong verification. Normally a huge fan of a bigger web platform, but will control, coral, and track users and that's a #rfc8890 violation of very high degree. Digital Credentials API: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/digital-credentials-api-origin-trial https://developer.chrome.com/blog/digital-credentials-api-or...
• underseacables 2y ago
  I was so sad I did not get a stamp in my passport when I visited Australia. Everything is electronic
  • bigfatkitten 2y ago
    I do two or three return trips between Australia and the US every year. My four year old passport has no stamps at all.
  • Klonoar 2y ago
    You can ask a security officer after the immigrations desk to stamp it. It's entirely dependent on the officer and whether the stamp is at the desk that day, but my wife and I recently both got our passports stamped this way. No guarantee, etc - but theoretically still possible as of 2024.
• vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I hate this idea. I hate having to depend on my phone. I rarely use it and often let it run out of charge. They can pry my passport from my cold dead hands.
  • silisili 2y ago
    I think the article is poorly titled, as it doesn't mean the end of paper passports. I can't see that happening in my lifetime - we still have checks and credit cards despite most young people just tapping their phone around. I'm all for digitalizing documents as an option, but not if it means losing physical copies. So far the government has been on the side of not discarding them - we still get paper social security cards.
    • Muromec 2y ago
      The reason hard copies of most documents will exist for a long time -- building federated digital systems is a huge pain in the ass. Sure, you can have a digital passport for purposes of authenticating yourself, which is operated by your national government. Will this government allow the same level of access to the embassy of North Korea or some other geopolitical adversary or just to a random sim card issuing shop in a mall oh the other side of the globe? Maybe they will in the same way corona certificates were implemented. Now will every single place that legitimately needs to have a copy of your id on file be bothered to interface with this system and all slightly incompatible versions of it provided by other governments? Probably not. And passports are kinda sorta simple to begin with.
    • steelframe 2y ago
      > we still have checks and credit cards despite most young people just tapping their phone around Unfortunately we're losing cash. There is one of those modern "chic" mixed-business-and-apartments developments not far from my house. Shortly after they completed construction my 12-year-old daughter visited the ice cream store there with her friends, but she couldn't pay for her ice cream when she got to the register because they didn't accept cash. They ended up just giving her the ice cream. Most of the restaurants there have a "no cash" policy posted in their windows and at the till. No skin off my back. They're overpriced for what they are anyway, so I'm happy to give my business to other local restaurants not in the fancy mixed-use development.
• zabzonk 2y ago
  Well, not in the UK. Here you need a passport to partake in any significant financial activity - I had to get one to sell my flat, and you need one to open a bank account. Neither of these were needed 20 or so years ago. It's basically introducing ID cards by the backdoor, when the majority of the UK has always been against them (but civil servants and politicians love them). And all under the nebulous reason of "preventing money laundering". I have to say though that the guy I spoke to at the Passport Office (a civil servant!) was very nice, and they did git it to me quickly. Never used it again 4 years later, though.
  • pwdisswordfishz 2y ago
    Well, of course. They didn't bring back blue covers only to get rid of the document completely.
  • mrshadowgoose 2y ago
    Completely ignorant here. What happens to individuals that are ineligible for passport issuance? Are they just extra-screwed?
    • daveoc64 2y ago
      There is usually a complicated list of documents that can be used. Depending on the legal process in question, another photo ID (e.g. driving licence) may still be needed.
    • zabzonk 2y ago
      Pretty much. But they may have other IDs like driving licences. And they are introducing electronic visas for immigrants.
  • dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Do you need a passport, or do you need some form of government ID? Presumably the 15% of UK residents who have no passport are still able to identify themselves somehow...
    • 2y ago
• ianburrell 2y ago
  Instead of replacing passports with apps, in between would support passport cards. Better to allow using national ID cards as passports. The digital data could be saved on card but with physical photo and info as backup. It also works for people without smartphone. The US has passport cards but they only work for land and sea from Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean countries.
  • csomar 2y ago
    This is basically what biometric passports are. They can fit in a national ID card. However, for backward compatibility, the papers are also provided.
  • Koshkin 2y ago
    Makes perfect sense…
  • loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    Recent Canadian passports are basically a plastic card glued to the first page of a paper passport. For backwards compatibility it seems - it’s obvious the plastic card contains the chip and everything that matters.
    • ffitch 2y ago
      the chip is inside the relatively soft back cover, not in the polycarbonate page
    • whimsicalism 2y ago
      it's the same in the US
    • placardloop 2y ago
      Chips have been present in passports, even the all-paper ones, since the 1990s, with all the same information. They’re called “Biometric Passports”. The plastic card in newer passports is for durability and making them more difficult to forge. But the chip doesn’t contain “everything that matters”. The chips have biometric info (hence the name) like legal name, sex, nationality, photos, and sometimes fingerprints. But the bulk of a passport book is made up of tens of pages where stamps, stickers, and even entire visa documents can be stapled/attached. None of these are present in the chip.
• jchw 2y ago
  Well I hope the numbers we're counting down from are pretty high then, because my interest in using my phone or face as a digital ID is non-existent. Can't we at least do smart cards? What if I don't want to travel with a phone? And let me guess: my options are some Android phone or an iPhone, and there's no need to worry about any potential new entrants to the smartphone market for the foreseeable future. We needed more barriers to entry for that market, it was getting awfully competitive! Yeah, sounds good. Again, I hope those days are numbered higher than mine.
  • mr_toad 2y ago
    Governments passively support a Windows desktop monopoly, why would they care about a cellphone duopoly?
    • jchw 2y ago
      My question: how about we just don't do this? Can we all agree the "governments depending on ActiveX controls for important things" thing was a terrible idea and just not? Smart cards would work fine, and there's even standards for it! The answer: nope, it's almost certainly time for round 2. Plus some forced facial recognition for good measure. Like I said, I hope the number on those days starts pretty high.
• woodruffw 2y ago
  I've been in a handful of places where no meaningful digital proof of identity/legal entry could possibly be produced: deserts, small towns with no cell service, etc. It's hard to imagine the expectation of a physical passport with a physical stamp in it going away anytime soon in these places.
  • yieldcrv 2y ago
    direct to cellular via satellite is reducing all deadzones to zero, barring some mountains at angle just playing devil's advocate with the way I see it heading
    • dghlsakjg 2y ago
      There are still significant portions of the world where having electricity, internet, and running water all working at the same time is not as common as you would hope. Expecting always on satellite connections in a lot of these places is asking for a lot.
      • staunton 2y ago
        > Expecting always on satellite connections in a lot of these places is asking for a lot. It might be easier than having reliable power grids or running water supply. Assuming at least some of the satellite-internet projects work out (Starlink, Amazon's thing, Chinese thing, European thing, ...) all you need might be a fairly affordable (comparing to infrastructure for running water) hardware that can run on demand using batteries.
      • yieldcrv 2y ago
        the needed infrastructure can be just at the passport checkpoints AST Spacemobile and Starlink's user experience will just require mobile phones. No adapters or base station. they'll find a way to power them, or extend signal from them. for the passport holder, that will just be client side and no connectivity necessary.
        • 2y ago
• mkl 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/pKO54 https://archive.ph/pKO54
• indulona 2y ago
  good luck with that ( ಠ ͜ʖ ರೃ)
• GrabbinD33ze69 2y ago
  Yea, no thanks. if this really does somehow become the only option, I'd imagine the best you could do is just carry a cheap android phone for this sole purpose.
  • ryandrake 2y ago
    If the government is going to mandate that you carry a phone in order to travel, they should provide the phone with the passport. I don't know how any of these "smartphone only" official document schemes are expected to work for people who don't carry smartphones.
    • fragmede 2y ago
      There was a lesser known Obamaphone program where the government did exactly that. it's not a bad idea.
• noodlesUK 2y ago
  There are significant downsides to the digitalization of travel documents. The biggest one I can think of is ownership - the UK is moving to an entirely digital visa system and bringing in an ESTA style system called ETA for visa free countries. Unfortunately this means that residency cards for noncitizens are being phased out. This means that when the Home Office messes up and accidentally deletes your immigration status, or you are at an airport with no internet access, you have no evidence whatsoever of what status you hold. It also means you will no longer be in possession of any records that might be useful years in the future when the current database containing immigration records will likely have been replaced. It’s much easier to keep a piece of paper around for 30+ years than it is to make sure a digital record doesn’t rot in that time. I feel strongly that any future digital travel credentials that are offered by governments should be able to operate entirely offline, and provide records that can be retained by the data subject. That means that revocation is harder, but IMO that’s a tradeoff that is worth making to avoid another Windrush scandal. This has already become a pain when dealing with countries that don’t stamp passports, because when you need to apply for something that asks for your travel history over the past 10 years, you might not have any records anymore.
  • zahlman 2y ago
    For me, this is a human rights issue. Article 13 of https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... is not contingent upon ownership of a smartphone.
    • noodlesUK 2y ago
      I do agree that conceptually the government shouldn’t force you to buy things from private companies to exercise your rights. However, you already have to buy a passport (often for a lot of money) in most countries, so pragmatically, I don’t know that it’s a hugely different thing to ask. However, there’s a big difference for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Immigration tends to stretch human rights though. It costs >10k gbp in visa fees for a British citizen to return to the UK with a non-UK spouse from arrival to settlement. You also need to be earning a fair bit of money, and not have the British partner as a stay at home spouse. I would say that frustrates article 8 ECHR, but the government disagrees. There are countless examples of similar issues re international travel and immigration. Smartphone ownership is simply one of many.
• AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
  What if we just didn't do borders instead? Seems like it worked fine for the EU.
  • syndicatedjelly 2y ago
    The EU has borders
    • AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
      Im aware but I apologize, we're in a thread about passports and I forgot I was on pendant news.
      • ascorbic 2y ago
        ^pedant
      • syndicatedjelly 2y ago
        Correct answer
• Havoc 2y ago
  They already did this with the EU settled scheme in UK. It’s a little disconcerting because you’re literally one „computer says no“ incident away from not being able to return to your own bed. Literally zero paperwork was issued to fall back on so you’re entirely dependent on a DB server somewhere Probably going to get a UK passport too just to manage risk. (Already qualify)
  • noodlesUK 2y ago
    Yeah and they’re now rolling that out to everyone, not just EU citizens. This sucks the most for visa nationals because their passport isn’t good enough to get into the country. They need the server to be alive and their documents linked to even make it to the border, let alone to cross it. Travel to the UK is going to be really chaotic from 1st Jan when all BRPs expire, and 8th Jan when US citizens and other non-EU nationals require ETAs.
    • Havoc 2y ago
      Ah good point. Hadn’t occurred to me that I could still get in as tourist so to speak
    • masterrr 2y ago
      I think they now allowed to use expired BRPs for a few months post 1st Jan. From HO website: "You may be able to use your expired BRP to travel to the UK until 31 March 2025 if both: your BRP expires on or after 31 December 2024. you still have permission to stay in the UK."
      • noodlesUK 2y ago
        Yes, they’ve said that, but gate agents at airports are the people who get to make decisions about boarding and expired documents will definitely freak them out. The issue isn’t really at border control, where there’s direct access to the databases anyway, it’s at the various stages of delegated border enforcement (boarding a plane, right to rent etc) where this will suck. You might be able to bully them into accepting them because it’s in Timatic but there will be British residents who are blocked at least temporarily because of this.
• conartist6 2y ago
  Oh ** I hope not. If so I'm going to be the one asshole who presents the document on my laptop just because I don't believe that people have the right to invite themselves onto my phone.
  • OutOfHere 2y ago
    But they can invite themselves to your laptop?
    • BenjiWiebe 2y ago
      Easier to run a VM and a FOSS OS on your laptop.
  • Maxious 2y ago
    Reminder that it is a condition of crossing many western country borders that you can be asked to hand over devices to be cellebrite'd. Refusal? YMMV > Address the massive amount of data from passenger digital devices > Collect all relevant data from every available data source uncovered at the border https://cellebrite.com/en/border-security/ https://cellebrite.com/en/border-security/
  • aaron695 2y ago
    [dead]
• WeylandYutani 2y ago
  In my country everyone has to be able to ID themselves when asked so I have to carry my passport around. If they can put it on my phone that would be nice. On the other hand if my phone is gone I am prety much dead no money no papers just another john doe...
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• StanislavPetrov 2y ago
  "Digital only" is a truly terrible idea for passports, currency and everything else. Even if everything worked perfectly (it never does) and all the databases were completely secure (they aren't), what happens when there is a power outage? What happens when the network goes down? What happens when you drop your phone in the toilet? In a perfect world nobody in a position of power would be remotely stupid enough to suggest going all digital for anything critically important, yet here we are.
  • steelframe 2y ago
    > What happens when the network goes down? When I was traveling in London in 2018 I was barely able to pay for the groceries I needed in order to eat that night because I was checking out just as the global VISA outage started happening. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/jun/01/visa-outage-payment-chaos-after-card-network-crashes-live-updates https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/jun/01/visa-outa... The machine took a long time to process my payment, but after a couple of attempts it managed to go through. As I left the store I noticed a long line forming for the self-checkout registers, and nobody else was able to get their payments to go through. There was apparently no option to fall back to cash at that store. Whenever I travel now one of the bits of research I do now is to make sure I have a plan for getting basic necessities like food and shelter should an electronic payment system outage like that happen again.
• rkagerer 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/pKO54 https://archive.ph/pKO54
• ftlisnotftl 2y ago
  This is frankly an abomination. I understand the need to identify people people crossing borders etc, but it's not, never has been and should never be a binary or digital thing. I'm not a religious person whatsoever but the identity of a human is not a stamp. No-one should have this right to such centralized control of human interaction, whether it be facebook or globally linked digital passports. We desperately need more local and subjective methods of reputation that are not tied to big centralized corporations or governments (one in the same). And yes, subjectively is a feature. I don't know how we can solve it but current path does not look good and is incredibly anti-life.
• diebeforei485 2y ago
  Pasports should be cards. Visas should also be cards. The booklets and stickers should be done away with.
  • devops99 2y ago
    I have a passport card that I use domestically and present in the event I am pulled over while traveling. > The booklets and stickers should be done away with. I would prefer that stickers continue to be used, but have cryptographic information in them and partially derived from information on the passport book itself.
  • steelframe 2y ago
    I have a card passport that I can use when crossing the Canadian-US border by land. In fact just my driver's license is technically all I need. The problem was when I caught COVID while on a trip to Vancouver. I was getting very sick and needed to get back home ASAP, but since I took the train I couldn't drive. All the car rental companies in the area were completely booked out. I thought, "Great, I guess I'll just go to the airport and catch a flight," except since I had crossed by land on the way in I didn't have the document I needed to fly out. Fortunately I was able to find a bus early the next morning, but it was looking pretty sketchy for a few hours until I could figure out how to get back home. After that experience I'll never travel out of the country again without my actual passport.
• csomar 2y ago
  Everyone here is freaking out but here are a few things from my experience: 1. There is very little to no chance that all the governments in the world are going to cooperate to create a centralized database about their citizens. Most countries don't want to do it and I don't see China or the US doing it anytime soon. 2. The biometric passport is not a paper passport already. The same way the SIM chip disappeared, your "passport" can disappear too. 3. The non-biometric passport will remain valid for at least 20-30 more years. I am talking about these very old passport that only a few handful of countries still issue including the USA (for particular situations). This backward compatibility will mean that the paper passports (even non-biometric!) will remain supported for a very long time.
  • devops99 2y ago
    https://www.id2020.org/
  • macleginn 2y ago
    Some countries can still only issue non-biometric passports in their consulates, so expats who can't stay in their "main" country for a long time are stuck with those.
    • csomar 2y ago
      Lots of edge cases. (ie: US citizens who have never been to the US)
  • palmfacehn 2y ago
    > There is very little to no chance that all the governments in the world are going to cooperate to create a centralized database about their citizens Agree that a 100% rollout is unlikely. However the UN, WEF and associated groups have been seeking global Digital ID for awhile now. Apparently it will help them protect us all from Climate Change. https://www.undp.org/blog/why-legal-identity-crucial-tackling-climate-crisis https://www.undp.org/blog/why-legal-identity-crucial-tacklin...
• mitch-crn 2y ago
  You will be numbered as well. Revelation 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
• palmfacehn 2y ago
  In response, I've stopped traveling to surveillance states or high (in)security states. I'm unwilling to participate in a society where I am expected to produce ID when walking down the street or can be accused of vague pseudo-crimes like being, "suspicious looking". I know my boycott won't mean much to those who are willing to put their entire lives onto their personal tracking devices. Maybe it even seems unreasonable to those who are accustomed to complying with testicular exams at the airport. That's totally fine. I'm not here to convince them of my principles. We all have different values. The point is I can leave the house without a device or ID and live a perfectly normal life.
  • fatata123 2y ago
    [dead]
• steelframe 2y ago
  Since I run GrapheneOS on a Google-less Pixel phone, I can't install airline apps. So what I typically do is use my web browser to check in for my flight and get a PDF of my boarding pass, then I take a screenshot of the QR code. The last time I did that the TSA scanner was able to read the QR code just fine, but the tablet app that the flight attendant was using at the gate couldn't read it for some reason. After about 10 seconds of fidgeting with the tablet they asked me what my name and seat number was. I told them, and after checking the list they let me through onto the plane. It looked like they tapped around in the app to override the QR code scan or something. Fast-forward 20 minutes, and we don't push back from the gate when it's time to depart. After another 5 minutes of delay they got on the PA system and said something about the passenger count being off and that the airline's headquarters wouldn't authorize departure until they figured that out. At one point about half an hour into this a flight attendant walked over to my seat and leaned over to adjust the air flow thingy, which I thought was a super weird and random thing to do. In all it took nearly an hour of everyone sitting on the plane at the gate before they figured it out and authorized departure. I actually have no idea where the breakdown was, because this happened at the gate when I flew earlier and it wasn't at all a problem. I presume the flight attendant scanning QR codes at the gate didn't hit the right buttons on their tablet that time. If we're going to rely on peoples' completely random personal devices to track authorization to travel, our systems need to be a lot better than this. Exceptions to whatever they think should be the "typical" flow should be straightforward and streamlined. In the meantime since they've gotten rid of kiosks in my local airport I guess I'll be going to the front desk every time and ask for printed boarding passes.
  • quenix 2y ago
    What do you suggest the whole leaning over and adjusting the air flow thing was about?
    • ukuina 2y ago
      Validation of the passenger manifest.
  • snowwrestler 2y ago
• JoshTriplett 2y ago
  I've repeatedly wished for a mechanism integrated into a phone that allows displaying one or more documents (e.g. QR codes, tickets, some other form of document to be displayed) while having the phone otherwise locked (in lockdown mode, so a password is required to unlock it). That would make it much safer to display a QR code on your phone without the net effect of having your phone unlocked when going through security. Until then, I'll continue to print such things out on paper.
  • Freak_NL 2y ago
    Why until then? Print in any case. It is an excellent way to have all of your important travel documents separate from your smartphone. Use you smartphone as the backup, not the other way around.
  • tmjwid 2y ago
    My Eink phone can do this (Hisense model), but the sacrifice of using one might be too big just for an on-demand QR code.
  • criddell 2y ago
    If you put your boarding passes into the Wallet app, you can access them from the lock screen of an iPhone.
    • JoshTriplett 2y ago
      This seems to have been the case on older Android (the "Quick Access Wallet" setting introduced in Android 12), but if that still exists on current Android 15 I haven't found it.
• seu 2y ago
  The title is slightly misleading, as the article seems to focus on flying between certain countries. Good luck expecting to cross 90% of the worlds borders without a paper passport, where these technologies will never appear. The author seems to lack the capacity (or experience!) to imagine other ways of moving around the world that are not flying.
• whatevaa 2y ago
  What happens if I loose my phone while travelling? Stolen, smashed, broken, exploded like Samsung?
  • BiteCode_dev 2y ago
    Or if your battery runs out. Or if it has a bug. Or if it runs a non approved OS. Or if it's too old. Or if it's being running an update.
    • Klonoar 2y ago
      I’m annoyed that I had to scroll this far to find “battery runs out” as an issue. I travel frequently and have had this happen a number of times. Paper passports shouldn’t go away. The USA should, though, stop issuing 50 page passports by default. Way too many pages for how less frequent passport stamps have become for the average traveler.
  • quacker 2y ago
    How is this any different a concern than losing your physical passport while traveling?
    • whatevaa 2y ago
      Much harder to smash a piece of paper/plastic and it's kept protected whem not needed, while phone is constantly in use. Also paper can't brake down randomly.
• highcountess 2y ago
  It’s funny how all the dystopian predictions of supposed “conspiracy theorists” (a term graciously coined by the ever helpful CIA, a bastion of freedom for all) seem to always come to fruition. It basically is a prison planet already, the remaining aspects of the humanity of it are just being automated out slowly but surely. The worst tyrannical dictatorships in history could not have even dreamt of the current state of things in their wildest dreams, and we are all racing at breakneck speed towards a hell of total domination by sadistic tyrants.
• highcountess 2y ago
  What happens if you don’t have a “smart phone” or any phone/tracking devices at all? Are we all getting bar code tattoos and will be prosecuted for not having a barcode tattoo?
• whitehexagon 2y ago
  As soon as the local banks here started the push of 'you'll be locked out of your account if you dont activate our App' I switched to a dumb-phone. Tech has turned against us, and as a developer I feel very sad about that. I strongly believe that a smart-phone should not be a requirement to partake in society. Something as basic and important as a passport should not be entrusted to these ad-phones. Same with the push for smart-phone fintech / digital currency, or card-only retail. The 'easy option' seems to cost us more and more freedoms. 'This app requires permission to access your passport details. This is only to confirm your date of birth, and thus your eligibility to access the ad infested internet' Having ranted about all that, I have to say that requesting a new UK passport last month was The best website experience I have had in a very long time. Simple UI, clear process, and worked perfectly without needing the latest nightly build of whatever new browser API / GB framework is the monthly fad. Just a shame it is quite ugly compared to the previous European one.
  • ProllyInfamous 2y ago
    >I strongly believe that a smart-phone should not be a requirement to partake in society. I'm 40; I stopped using email in 2016 (save temp-burners for a few necessary signups); essentially never do I carry a cellular phone, nor do I app/text. My bank treats me like a criminal, locking me out of online banking; occassionally they cancel my debit card ("didn't you see our app notification?!"). Jokes on them, though: I live one block away from this bank, so I just walk in constantly to ask them for account balances/transactions, and to poke fun at their ideas of security (e.g. text 2FA, which login.gov specifically declares "bad practice"). It's actually kind of nice, having built rapore with a few of the tellers who already know why I'm visiting their location so often: bad company policies, dependant upon smartphone apps. Should physical identification ever be legislated out of existance, I'd probably just expatriate (at this point, semi-retired).
    • whatnotests2 2y ago
      My god, can I please rent your basement? I want off this ride.
• gregoriol 2y ago
  As soon as you put everything on a single point of failure, it will fail you. It is not a good idea to have keys, documents, passes, ... all on a smartphone: it can break if dropped, it can be stolen anytime, it can have no battery. Those devices are not good for such important elements of a travel.
  • cyberpunk 2y ago
    Ah! I know this one! You buy the compatible watch and tablet too! ;)
  • ProllyInfamous 2y ago
    >As soon as you put everything on a single point of failure, it will fail you. And thus: Gregoriol's Law is born.
• fredfoo 2y ago
  This article seems like a baseless assertion to me. There are lots of fast track like systems that are basically equivalent to a return to the earlier practices of using licenses at borders. That wasn't anywhere near a viable replacement to the issuance of all passports back then and the same issues are present now.
• surfingdino 2y ago
  Two thoughts: 1. How would it work in case of dual citizenship? Would one be able to choose under which nationality they want to cross the border? 2. "(...) no fallback systems in place." This is worrying. Do we just send people back (at their own cost, I presume), because they were rejected by the system? This seems like a pile of lawsuits for unlawfully preventing family members to visit each other or generally restricting freedom to travel with no accountability.
• Aachen 2y ago
  Had to read a bit but, ah, there it is: the war on general computation > A DTC, according to the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is behind the approach, is made up of two parts: a virtual element, which represents the information stored on passports, and a physical part, the bit on your phone. The two are cryptographically linked to ensure they’re not forgeries. Your phone, apparently, can't simply carry this data and provide that at your choice to the passport checkpoint for it to verify by taking a picture of you and comparing it against their database. No, it needs to be locked down. If you are the admin on your device, you could make a copy, so it sounds like this will never be allowed to run on a phone that isn't locked Smartphones are supplanting computers for a lot of people but manufacturers lock it down in a way that you can't fully see (let alone control) what it does. Some manufacturers let you flip a switch and get this access, but then big corps and governments try to counteract that and refuse to provide their service on your unlocked device For a smartcard (bank chip, SIM card, yubikey, passport, oyster card, etc.) this isn't a problem because the device is dedicated. I don't need access to the private key on a SIM card because I've got no intention of forging it. Would be cool to see its internals but it doesn't have a microphone or its own uplink. However, I do want access to my smartphone because I use it for all sorts of things (including making a full backup instead of dealing with individual apps' manual or adb export functionality) and it processes all sorts of personal data about me that I want to be in control of (I often open an app's data folder to see what is stored, queued for uploading when I don't give it network access (SwiftKey has telemetry reports queued for years and years), or to modify some setting that the GUI doesn't expose). One of my primary devices wouldn't really be mine if I need it to carry these things requiring DRM These applications have legitimate reasons to want to be on a smartcard, for it would require an always-online database who the counterparty (such as border control) can trust if they can't trust me or my device. It just doesn't belong on a smartphone, like get your own secure storage if that's what you want me to carry. Payment, passports, and public transport can all bundle their thingies onto one smartcard just fine (if they can standardise on phones, they can also standardise on a much simpler device with more uniform functionality). It could even be a smartcard chip inside my phone, but it shouldn't be my phone with my data on it that needs to be locked down for this unrelated purpose
• slackfan 2y ago
  Cold, dead hands.
• bookofjoe 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/pKO54 https://archive.ph/pKO54