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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
by 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 agodirect 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 agoThere 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 agothe 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.
- torstenvl 2y agoNo. It isn't "just at the passport checkpoints." It's everywhere. Passports are the only form of ID most people have abroad that are recognized by foreign governments and establishments. Good luck to the French dude trying to drink in the U.S. without a passport, or getting stopped by the police in Łodz and not having any valid identification on you.
- f33d5173 2y agoAny government id eg drivers license will work for that.
- tsimionescu 2y agoThis is very much false in much of the world. Especially if you have foreign paperwork, it's very likely a passport will be required by any kind of official asking for any other paperwork from you.
- Kwpolska 2y ago15 years ago, a Polish driver named "Prawo Jazdy" was causing a real nuisance to the Irish police, seemingly all over the country. Turns out they couldn't parse the document and they were looking for a man named "Driver's Licence". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7899171.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7899171.... Nowadays, the licenses in the EU are standardized, but at the same time, they are completely unreadable if you don't know the standard, since data fields are numbered, but not usually described in English.
- monksy 2y agoNope that'll get you threatened to have the police called on you at the Walmart in Burlington NC. (Austrian federal ID trying to buy alcohol)
- RoyalHenOil 2y agoI am a dual citizen, and I have not found this to be the case in either of my two countries. Neither of them will accept photo IDs issued by the other, except for passports.
- woodruffw 2y agoI've been in some very steep mountain valleys :-) But as others have noted: assuming satellite cellular access is also a big leap. I once had someone check my papers by taking my passport, writing a copy of the entry visa number on it (itself hand-written), and then finding me hours later after they were able to find a landline to call the border service with.
- whimsicalism 2y agoit seems like the exact same would be possible with an app
- woodruffw 2y agoYou're going to use an app over a landline?
- whimsicalism 2y agoif my app has a code, presumably they're equally able to verify it over a landline
- woodruffw 2y agoSure, assuming the phone isn't dead. I've also been in disaster-stricken places where that wasn't a certainty.
- lxgr 2y agoEven in a world with ubiquitous connectivity, this introduced a single point of failure. At least some offline capabilities are essential for something as crucial as travel documents.
- whimsicalism 2y agoi don't see how a physical passport with a physical stamp is any more meaningful than an offline smartphone with a passport app, either way the receiver needs some connection if they want to do any real verification
- woodruffw 2y agoIt's meaningful to a bored police officer in a less-than-democratic country who has nothing better to do than make my life annoying. I'm not denying that it's security theater or claiming that it's more meaningful; I'm saying solely that there are physical expectations that are going to be very hard to shake once you go off the beaten path.
- whimsicalism 2y agoI took 'could possibly' + reference to cell service to mean that there is some sort of technical/infrastructural limitation. If your point is that the world is big and any effort to do this would take a long, long time to fully penetrate beyond a few highly developed Western countries, then I definitely agree.
- woodruffw 2y agoYep, that was the sole point.
- FreePalestine1 2y agoI think things generally start off as experiments in first world countries then trickle down eventually to third world countries. That's just the reality. 20 years ago not everything could be digitized because internet/smartphone access isn't widespread, but now more or less every single person on the planet has some sort of internet access. Things change eventually, they gotta start somewhere.
- fragmede 2y agoMore like 68% of people, which seems pretty far from "more or less every single person on the planet". https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-internet-users-worldwide/#statisticContainer https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-interne...
- placardloop 2y agoYea, lots of comments in here advocating for full digital or “just use passport cards” are coming from a narrow perspective of only having to use passports in established travel routes like major international airports or developed countries. Most of these suggestions just simply wouldn’t work in the majority of the land border crossings I’ve experienced in places like Laos, Cambodia, rural China, Thailand, Peru, Bolivia, etc.
- sojournerc 2y agoOr... Canada! I've biked from Montana into Alberta and the border crossing was in the middle of forest in the middle of nowhere. Definitely no reception or wifi there.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoPut a star link there, problem solved. That works pretty much anywhere in the world.
- sojournerc 2y agoBut there currently isn't a problem with physical passports. They work! Why introduce new problems? I was bike touring and wasn't carrying a phone. Isn't that allowed?
- jillesvangurp 2y agoThey work, sure. It just involves queueing, lots of manual checks, endless amounts of misery at airports, etc. But it works. But I would label it as a problem. I like being able to skip all of that. That works too. It's not that hard.
- sojournerc 2y agoI wouldn't qualify standing in a line as endless misery... Regardless, I have global entry so I do appreciate the desire to skip a line, but I don't follow how 100% digitization solves the need for checkpoints completely. It just seems like techno utopianism to me.