4 ms·

Swiss voters back e-ID legislation

40 points by Davidbrcz 1y ago

folli 1y ago
Extremely tight results and the majority of cantons voted against it. I still believe it's the way forward.
- testdelacc1 1y ago
  Land doesn’t vote though. People do.
  - metalman 1y ago
    and in Swirzerland a large percentage of the voters have a required by law machine gun or have kept the required machine gun, for the required time, so the "e-id" will presumably be just another part of generaly orderly and significantly bizarre, swissness very unlike whatever just got thrown out in merry old
  - kgwgk 1y ago
    Not in this case, but “the decision to amend the constitution or join a supranational community requires a so-called double majority”.
- spacebanana7 1y ago
  > I still believe it's the way forward Why? I mean this sincerely, are you not concerned about the dystopian social credit scoring potential of these systems
  - QQ00 1y ago
    the general population are dumb, you are expecting too much from them to be honest. the forward March toward dystopian tomorrow will never stop, we will lament the stupidity of the public who made this possible in our small corners on the internet.
    - bootsmann 1y ago
      I think it generally not wise to project the political conflicts and fault lines of one's own country on to other countries which exist in very different contexts.
      - QQ00 1y ago
        we started to see this kind of disturbing dystopian legislations in Australia, European countries, uk and next is the United States. I don't think it's limited to one country.
    - pheggs 1y ago
      I voted no in this, but I was on the fence. In my experience people are smarter than they get credit for and the decisions made in these votes are often quite good. There was more to consider than privacy, it's also about the fact that most countries will implement something like this as it is pushed by the UN. So it might become required for some things in the future. Then we currently don't have a whole lot of ways to distinguish AI from people anymore, which will only get worse. Propaganda bots are real and we don't know how that will evolve. It will make a lot of the processes easier as you can do them from home, which is especially useful for disabled people that can not easily appear physically. Plus, it's more or less optional to have one for now. And yet, I am still kinda disappointed it passed. We will see how it evolves.
harel 1y ago
Meanwhile in the UK a petition to stop the government doing the same has passed 2 million signatures. On a technical level, I wonder if they will use verified credentials to drive this.
- bootsmann 1y ago
  The codebase they are going to use already exists and is open source. Most of the specs can be found somewhere on their github. It's a bit more voodoo than just plain credentials to satisfy privacy requirements. https://github.com/swiyu-admin-ch https://github.com/swiyu-admin-ch
  - harel 1y ago
    Interesting. It's got a number of VC hallmarks there nonetheless.
- boomskats 1y ago
  And rightly so. The Swiss have direct democracy. We have a PM who is so jealous of Tony's 20 mil a year in post-Iraq 'speaking fees' that he'll do anything to figure out his own revolving door - in this case throwing an entire nation's worth of data under the Peter Thiel bus in the hope of some kickbacks. What the Swiss just voted on and what the UK government are mandating are absolutely not 'the same'. Use of the swiss ID is voluntary.
  - harel 1y ago
    I'm a signatory of said petition. Scary times.
  - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
    What's the precise nature of the conspiracy you're claiming exist between Starmer and Thiel?
    - myvoiceismypass 1y ago
      Maybe the UK getting in bed with Palintir https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-strategic-partnership-to-unlock-billions-and-boost-military-ai-and-innovation https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-strategic-partnership...
testdelacc1 1y ago
This is a surprising result. I wonder how they managed to convince people this was necessary. There’s a real split in this debate, between people living in countries that have this and people living elsewhere. People who have used it are generally supportive, if they think about it at all. People who’ve never lived in a country with this are generally skeptical about the benefits and pessimistic about the downsides (privacy, mainly). HN being HN, is almost entirely in the latter camp regardless of where they live. I would have expected the Swiss to be skeptical, and to some extent they were. This is the narrowest possible margin of victory. Still, it would be interesting to know what argument the Yes campaign used that resonated with > 50% of voters.
- bootsmann 1y ago
  There wasn't really a yes campaign which, imo, is why it was this close. The government put it out there, made their handful of media appearances and that was mostly it. The vibes were that it was going to pass easily so everyone almost sleepwalked themselves into a disaster.
- the_mitsuhiko 1y ago
  I live in a country (Austria) with at this point more than 20 years of a sort of digital ID. I’m really not quite sure how something as simple as authenticating as a citizen to access governmental services has become so controversial.
  - majormajor 1y ago
    Some fairly unusual (compared to most of Christianity practiced globally) Biblical interpretations widely popularized in the past 100 years have a lot to do with it in the US. HN is typically more coming from a libertarian-anti-tracking bent but the larger popular US opposition to standardized federal IDs is rooted in "mark of the beast" stuff.
    - QQ00 1y ago
      curious what mark of the beast has to do with a federal ID? I always thought the opposition majority because it's not something in the constitution to be a centralized by the federal government and it was left for the state to handle.
gp14 1y ago
[dead]
nioj 1y ago
Concurrent discussion from 4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 Swiss voters back e-ID and abolish rental tax (swissinfo.ch) Currently: 59 points & 52 comments
burakemir 1y ago
Finally a good use case for decentralized technology? From https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/technology https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/technology "The e-ID architecture is based on a decentralised identity model that gives users full control over their identity and personal data. There is no central authority that aggregates, stores or controls credentials. Data flows occur directly and in a decentralised manner between the holder and an issuer or verifier. Linkability of usage across different services is technically restricted. Interactions between different actors also cannot be directly linked. During a verification process, the holder shares only the necessary data directly with a verifier, without the issuer being informed."
- KoolKat23 1y ago
  Who maintains the register? And what happens if they withdraw credentials, or what are the grounds to do so?
  - bootsmann 1y ago
    Depends on the credential being issued. For the digital identity document it is the federal state, but the cantons (states) or even corporations are able to issue their own credentials using their own register.
    - KoolKat23 1y ago
      Very interesting, that sounds a whole lot better than I envisaged. In theory your drivers license, passport, social number can all remain separate (not that it's necessarily set up like that in Switzerland). Thanks.
- Edmond 1y ago
  Have not looked into it yet but sounds a lot like a PKI based certificate style scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723418 The verifier is the entity you hand your information to for verification, ie the CA. The extent of your interaction and linkage with them is mainly at point of verification and issuance. It is however possible to trace a certificate to it's issuer, which on the surface sounds like a bad thing, but is in fact good if the goal is to provide privacy while ensuring accountability.
abc03 1y ago
For context, this is the second voting. In the first 2021, 64% said no because the e-ID would have been administrated by private companies.
_zoltan_ 1y ago
finally.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675
kkfx 1y ago
The main point MUST be: - Very YES to smart-card based systems, like you get an ID card, driving license, ... who is also a contactless or contact smart-card for accessing with a card-reader on a desktop any public service - Very NO if it's an app on non-FLOSS, non-open-hardware devices. That's the real point. Then it's time to talk about rules as code, or at least bureaucracy as code. With a public OpenFisca "blockchain edition" where documents are signed and timestamped on the network and the blockchain is held by participant citizens, not only public bodies, using fees to compensate all participants.

40 points by Davidbrcz 1y ago

folli 1y ago

Extremely tight results and the majority of cantons voted against it. I still believe it's the way forward.

testdelacc1 1y ago
Land doesn’t vote though. People do.
- metalman 1y ago
  and in Swirzerland a large percentage of the voters have a required by law machine gun or have kept the required machine gun, for the required time, so the "e-id" will presumably be just another part of generaly orderly and significantly bizarre, swissness very unlike whatever just got thrown out in merry old
- kgwgk 1y ago
  Not in this case, but “the decision to amend the constitution or join a supranational community requires a so-called double majority”.
spacebanana7 1y ago
> I still believe it's the way forward Why? I mean this sincerely, are you not concerned about the dystopian social credit scoring potential of these systems
- QQ00 1y ago
  the general population are dumb, you are expecting too much from them to be honest. the forward March toward dystopian tomorrow will never stop, we will lament the stupidity of the public who made this possible in our small corners on the internet.
  - bootsmann 1y ago
    I think it generally not wise to project the political conflicts and fault lines of one's own country on to other countries which exist in very different contexts.
    - QQ00 1y ago
      we started to see this kind of disturbing dystopian legislations in Australia, European countries, uk and next is the United States. I don't think it's limited to one country.
  - pheggs 1y ago
    I voted no in this, but I was on the fence. In my experience people are smarter than they get credit for and the decisions made in these votes are often quite good. There was more to consider than privacy, it's also about the fact that most countries will implement something like this as it is pushed by the UN. So it might become required for some things in the future. Then we currently don't have a whole lot of ways to distinguish AI from people anymore, which will only get worse. Propaganda bots are real and we don't know how that will evolve. It will make a lot of the processes easier as you can do them from home, which is especially useful for disabled people that can not easily appear physically. Plus, it's more or less optional to have one for now. And yet, I am still kinda disappointed it passed. We will see how it evolves.

harel 1y ago

Meanwhile in the UK a petition to stop the government doing the same has passed 2 million signatures. On a technical level, I wonder if they will use verified credentials to drive this.

bootsmann 1y ago
The codebase they are going to use already exists and is open source. Most of the specs can be found somewhere on their github. It's a bit more voodoo than just plain credentials to satisfy privacy requirements. https://github.com/swiyu-admin-ch https://github.com/swiyu-admin-ch
- harel 1y ago
  Interesting. It's got a number of VC hallmarks there nonetheless.
boomskats 1y ago
And rightly so. The Swiss have direct democracy. We have a PM who is so jealous of Tony's 20 mil a year in post-Iraq 'speaking fees' that he'll do anything to figure out his own revolving door - in this case throwing an entire nation's worth of data under the Peter Thiel bus in the hope of some kickbacks. What the Swiss just voted on and what the UK government are mandating are absolutely not 'the same'. Use of the swiss ID is voluntary.
- harel 1y ago
  I'm a signatory of said petition. Scary times.
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  What's the precise nature of the conspiracy you're claiming exist between Starmer and Thiel?
  - myvoiceismypass 1y ago
    Maybe the UK getting in bed with Palintir https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-strategic-partnership-to-unlock-billions-and-boost-military-ai-and-innovation https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-strategic-partnership...

testdelacc1 1y ago

This is a surprising result. I wonder how they managed to convince people this was necessary. There’s a real split in this debate, between people living in countries that have this and people living elsewhere. People who have used it are generally supportive, if they think about it at all. People who’ve never lived in a country with this are generally skeptical about the benefits and pessimistic about the downsides (privacy, mainly). HN being HN, is almost entirely in the latter camp regardless of where they live. I would have expected the Swiss to be skeptical, and to some extent they were. This is the narrowest possible margin of victory. Still, it would be interesting to know what argument the Yes campaign used that resonated with > 50% of voters.

bootsmann 1y ago
There wasn't really a yes campaign which, imo, is why it was this close. The government put it out there, made their handful of media appearances and that was mostly it. The vibes were that it was going to pass easily so everyone almost sleepwalked themselves into a disaster.
the_mitsuhiko 1y ago
I live in a country (Austria) with at this point more than 20 years of a sort of digital ID. I’m really not quite sure how something as simple as authenticating as a citizen to access governmental services has become so controversial.
- majormajor 1y ago
  Some fairly unusual (compared to most of Christianity practiced globally) Biblical interpretations widely popularized in the past 100 years have a lot to do with it in the US. HN is typically more coming from a libertarian-anti-tracking bent but the larger popular US opposition to standardized federal IDs is rooted in "mark of the beast" stuff.
  - QQ00 1y ago
    curious what mark of the beast has to do with a federal ID? I always thought the opposition majority because it's not something in the constitution to be a centralized by the federal government and it was left for the state to handle.

gp14 1y ago

[dead]

nioj 1y ago

Concurrent discussion from 4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 Swiss voters back e-ID and abolish rental tax (swissinfo.ch) Currently: 59 points & 52 comments

burakemir 1y ago

Finally a good use case for decentralized technology? From https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/technology https://www.eid.admin.ch/en/technology "The e-ID architecture is based on a decentralised identity model that gives users full control over their identity and personal data. There is no central authority that aggregates, stores or controls credentials. Data flows occur directly and in a decentralised manner between the holder and an issuer or verifier. Linkability of usage across different services is technically restricted. Interactions between different actors also cannot be directly linked. During a verification process, the holder shares only the necessary data directly with a verifier, without the issuer being informed."

KoolKat23 1y ago
Who maintains the register? And what happens if they withdraw credentials, or what are the grounds to do so?
- bootsmann 1y ago
  Depends on the credential being issued. For the digital identity document it is the federal state, but the cantons (states) or even corporations are able to issue their own credentials using their own register.
  - KoolKat23 1y ago
    Very interesting, that sounds a whole lot better than I envisaged. In theory your drivers license, passport, social number can all remain separate (not that it's necessarily set up like that in Switzerland). Thanks.
Edmond 1y ago
Have not looked into it yet but sounds a lot like a PKI based certificate style scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723418 The verifier is the entity you hand your information to for verification, ie the CA. The extent of your interaction and linkage with them is mainly at point of verification and issuance. It is however possible to trace a certificate to it's issuer, which on the surface sounds like a bad thing, but is in fact good if the goal is to provide privacy while ensuring accountability.

abc03 1y ago

For context, this is the second voting. In the first 2021, 64% said no because the e-ID would have been administrated by private companies.

_zoltan_ 1y ago

finally.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405675

kkfx 1y ago

The main point MUST be: - Very YES to smart-card based systems, like you get an ID card, driving license, ... who is also a contactless or contact smart-card for accessing with a card-reader on a desktop any public service - Very NO if it's an app on non-FLOSS, non-open-hardware devices. That's the real point. Then it's time to talk about rules as code, or at least bureaucracy as code. With a public OpenFisca "blockchain edition" where documents are signed and timestamped on the network and the blockchain is held by participant citizens, not only public bodies, using fees to compensate all participants.