8 ms·

I dunno man, I migrated to the Netherlands and our digital ID is an amazing system that literally makes my life easier anytime i need to interact with something

• zwnow 1y ago
  In Germany it unfortunately failed abysmal. Most digital ids stopped working after like 6 months of introduction of the system...
  • Semaphor 1y ago
    What? It works great when it’s supported. It’s just that there still aren’t enough public or private places supporting it.
    • zwnow 1y ago
      Not my experience unfortunately
  • microtonal 1y ago
    I think in Germany, such efforts are doomed to fail (or were at least doomed to fail when we lived in Germany) because Germany is reluctant to connect different government administrations due to historical baggage (SS, Stasi, etc). We have had DigiD in The Netherlands since 2004 (at least that's when it got its current name) and it's glorious. Everything from requesting a new passport, logging to your tax administration, registering as a company, making an appointment for Corona vaccination to doing declarations with your insurance company is done with DigiD. The authentication flow is super-smooth and quick. I know there are risks to having one central account (slightly mitigated by support for 2FA and scanning your ID card/passport/driver's license NFC as another factor). But it makes dealing with the government so much easier. We lived in Germany and it was a total disaster in comparison.
    • zwnow 1y ago
      Germany as a whole has become a total disaster sadly. From public transportation to schools over retirement homes to rent prices. Everything is crumbling and its depressing. I wished we could at least have good technical infrastructure, as its relatively cost efficient, but no, we lack competence and old people are blocking every modernization there is (in public offices). Its honestly extremely frustrating.
      • port11 1y ago
        This is one of the most exaggerated takes on the country I've come across. I lived there for 8 years and Germany is, frankly, a superb place to live. I left Germany 3 times and my quality of life took a hit each time. The first 2 I went back; sadly I can't do it again. Public transportation was in the top 3 of what I've experienced in Continental Europe; schools are seen as respectable and good; healthcare was generally very good if expensive (14.x% of salary is a bit much). I could go on. Germany has definite problems, and the federal overruling of things like “rent brakes” is cause for concern. But to call the country ’a total disaster’ can only be done by one that, quite honestly, has no idea of what a bad or even mediocre country looks like.
        • zwnow 1y ago
          8 years, wow. Try 30 and actually growing up in this country. School is letting people down, rent prices are exploding. Public transportation is a complete joke (https://youtu.be/0rb9CfOvojk?si=1S258ynDJZkGZdoT https://youtu.be/0rb9CfOvojk?si=1S258ynDJZkGZdoT) Sorry, but with how rich Germany is I can and should expect more from this country.
          • port11 1y ago
            Public schools, public transport, well, public everything is being dismantled or cost-savings-worsened by neoliberal governments all across Europe. I've yet to live in a country where the public institutions aren't being torn apart by privatisation and cost-cutting. That's sadly universal. So I'd say Germany fared better than the other places I've lived: Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium. In Belgium we have a higher marginal tax rate with the same results as you're complaining about. Your universities are still seen abroad with high regard. Rent… well, damn, yes. Rent is very high everywhere, for a number of reasons largely due to letting foreign and corporate investment hoard up property, while at the same time building too much high-cost residential and not enough for lower and middle class people (single or otherwise). The market won't correct itself until only individuals are allowed to own housing and up to a certain highly-progressively taxed limit. That said, my rents in Germany were lower than, say, Belgium. I agree you have a rich country and I didn't live there all my life. But it's still one of the few countries I'd say is doing something for its citizens, largely due to the German understanding of the collective good and social norms :)
  • tchalla 1y ago
    Hopefully BundID remains
• stavros 1y ago
  I'm not against digital ID, but I am very much against perfect law enforcement. Society evolves, and things that used to be unthinkable (eg gay marriage) slowly become acceptable. To become acceptable, however, they need to be allowed to be done, even if illegally. If you arrested every homosexual the moment they kissed someone, then homosexuality would never have become legal. Perfect enforcement leads to an ossified society that only changes when the people who can lobby for laws that benefit them want it to. It will be a perfect dictatorship that can never be toppled, it can only get worse. Every dystopian film or movie starts with some tyrannical society and a resistance movement. Now imagine you made resistance impossible, which is what perfect law enforcement will do.
  • skrebbel 1y ago
    This is the part of the argument I don’t get. A digital ID system like the one in NL is basically just a login system. It’s oauth for public services, not too different from “sign in with Google”. How does that lead to perfect law enforcement? Like, how does it prevent homosexuals from kissing? I don't mean this dismissively. I assume there is a series of steps that make sense that I’m not seeing.
    • michaelt 1y ago
      Here in the UK, the government wants: * ID checks for social media (to protect children) * A digital ID card, allowing ID check records to be provably linked to the original ID document (to prevent illegal working) * The police arresting people for posting unfashionable takes on human sexuality to social media And even if you trust the current government, there are very real fears the next government will be Trump-admiring right wing populists who are eager to upend the status quo.
      • pjc50 1y ago
        > The police arresting people for posting unfashionable takes on human sexuality to social media When you look into these cases, they always turn out to be "a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against one or more named individuals". It took years for even Glinner to finally cross that line and get his collar felt.
• wesammikhail 1y ago
  > An open standard for the world to use for this seems like the ideal way you would want it to happen. I get the convenience part. I am from Sweden. We have BankID. I really get it. But in reality, when centralized systems go to shit, they go to shit REAL BAD. So I personally oppose any such measures on both principles but also... it's okay if life is a little bit less convenient. Not everything needs to be ultra optimized for efficiency. Privacy and systemic integrity is worth at least that much imo.
  • microtonal 1y ago
    The Netherlands has had a standard for authentication, which is supported by all government organizations, many insurance companies, etc. for 21 years and it only got better with time. I also strongly prefer it over the shitty, broken authentication systems many government organizations, companies, etc. come up with otherwise (we lived in Germany for a while and the crappy systems we had to deal with were endless). Or even worse, let some FAANG company do the authentication.
  • cowboy_henk 1y ago
    BankID seems quite different. Importantly the Dutch system is not tied to banks in any way; no commercial parties required for it to function.
• witnessme 1y ago
  Does Decode project overlaps with Solid project (Sir Tim Berners Lee's project with similar objective)? P.S. Thanks for sharing Decode, it looks good, I will be diving deeper into it this weekend. TIA.
• Mashimo 1y ago
  Same in Denmark. It acts as a SSO for Banks, library, 2fa for debit card, hospital websites, all kinds of government services. Makes it easy, because you don't need a new or different account.
  • graemep 1y ago
    Which means the provider can track you across all those. What you spend, what you read, what medical treatment you have. All just to save carrying a wallet?
    • vachina 1y ago
      The provider is the government by the way, and SSO doesn’t give them the ability to track activities beyond where I signed in. It is possible, to trust the government in other parts of world.
      • closewith 1y ago
        Can you imagine a scenario where this might become a problem?
        • Muromec 1y ago
          That entirely depends on how hostile you believe both parties of SSO exchange are towards you.
          • array_key_first 1y ago
            The idea is we should develop systems that are resistant to relying on trust. Ideally, I should have faith in my life being okay without needing to blindly trust every single company I interact with.
            • Muromec 1y ago
              You can't actually. Everything we interact with eventually ends up relying on trust, even the blockchain, but especially everything with humans and politics.
• a-french-anon 1y ago
  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.
  • Lauris100 1y ago
    Everyone has a smartphone lol - i can tell that living in a country with great digital services is a lot less stressful than in country with no digitization and old school paperwork i have gone through both.
    • closewith 1y ago
      Falsehoods programmers believe about society.
    • jcgl 1y ago
      If smartphones are to be a requirement for participation in civil society, privacy- and freedom-preserving smartphones are needed at the very least. People shouldn't be required to submit to some company's Terms of Service in order to participate in society.
      • ta20240528 1y ago
        Should everyone be required to use private banks to access e.g. foreign exchange? 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.
        • pjc50 1y ago
          Telcos are licensed. Mobile phone manufacturers and, crucially, OS providers, are not. Although in the EU they are now subject to some Digital Markets Act control.
• scott_w 1y ago
  From the UK and listening to people who don't have things like passports, it sounds like it'll make proving your right to work much easier for people, too. I've spoken to friends who have foreign relatives and they've also pointed out the problem the UK has which is: 1. To open a bank account you need an address 2. To rent somewhere (get an address), you need a bank account 3. See above The same happens for children opening their first bank account. They get round this usually by having a parent vouch for you, however, this isn't much use to children with estranged/dead/abusive parents. A system that is mandatory, acts as sufficient ID in all cases (proof of ID, proof of address, etc.) and is free for the recipient has the potential to make otherwise excluded peoples' lives easier.
  • pjc50 1y ago
    > I've spoken to friends who have foreign relatives and they've also pointed out the problem the UK has which is Lots of countries have this circularity, including Continental ones with ID systems, and I think it's an intentional anti-immigrant measure.
    • scott_w 1y ago
      Absolutely, it’s a major problem. I would think this system needs to hand out ID cards to everyone who needs one (student, work visa, alongside NI number, etc.) to break that loop.
      • pjc50 1y ago
        For a while the UK had the stupid situation where there was a high-security biometric identity system, but only for immigrants, and one of the things you did as part of the process of becoming a citizen was the requirement to hand back or destroy the ID. (this of course tells us where all the ID pressure is coming from: voters want an identity system that can be weaponized against immigrants and The Other.)
    • buildfocus 1y ago
      For Spain at least, most banks have foreigner accounts you can open with a passport, and convert into a normal account once you have local id later. It's a mildly unusual setup (and a bit confusing when you're new) but it's pretty widely available and it's not a significant blocker. There's plenty of other challenges and structural disadvantages as an immigrant, but this one at least isn't too bad. If anything, there's really a big advantage to it for the banks - most locals already have banking, immigrants are the one market where you can get new customers without having to push them past the effort/laziness of switching from their existing setup.
• Brian_K_White 1y ago
  I dunno man, there is an interesting comment below about that time the Netherlands unusually complete population data made the Nazis lives easier.
• deep_lol 1y ago
  Don't forget couple of things: Dutch digid is tightly coupled with your address. All documents only go via regular post to your registered address in the Netherlands. No address? Moved to another one? Didn't register new address? Moved out of country? Good luck getting or updating digid. Digid verification goes to your phone. Lost phone or get stolen? Changed mobile number? Guess what, no digid for you anymore.
  • apexalpha 1y ago
    You can just install and register a new Digid App it's not that complicated. I mean people have physical passports and they sometimes lose those which doesn't seem to be a blocking issue.
    • deep_lol 1y ago
      Oh man, you probably never used it. You cannot register digid without paper documents being sent by post to your registered address in the Netherlands. Also, once you go beyond very basic services you might discover digid only works if you are a citizen. Otherwise you are back to papers.
• jalapenos 1y ago
  I think this is the plot of every dystopian movie ever though? You're betting that the government are always going to be nice to you and those around you, carefully ignoring all the history books.
• phatfish 1y ago
  Agreed, all the scaremongering is hilarious. As if a digital ID is what is going to be used to repress the common (wo)man. News flash, if your "liberal western government" wanted to they have more than enough tools to do it already. See all the repressive governments with institutions stuck in the 60s. - Don't trust corporations that you have no control over. - Vote wisely for the government you do have some control over. - Accept compromises are needed in a society of millions rather than constant political conflict. Start with the above for a better life.
  • DrProtic 1y ago
    In the same breath you mention repressive governments and how you have control over governments. Which one is it?
    • phatfish 1y ago
      Depends which sort of government you live under obviously. Luckily in the UK we do have control over our government. If people got off the internet they might realise they have all the tools needed to make their country a better place.
  • user3939382 1y ago
    I don’t think it’s scaremongering or hilarious. I think you’re weak. Oh it’s nice to have this, so I’ll relinquish my sovereignty, if you can’t beat em join em. Enshrined in a false dichotomy: how about we don’t trust the corporations OR the government? As far as their “tools” I invented a stack which demolishes all digital surveillance. The real point is we need people like me not people like you, then we’d actually have solutions to these problems. YOU are the problem. Your weakness and laziness is what enables these horrible patterns.
  • reaperducer 1y ago
    all the scaremongering is hilarious. Only if you didn't pay attention in history class. Certain European governments didn't tattoo serial numbers on the arms of certain citizens so they could more easily access government services and check out library books. You can say "Europe isn't like that anymore" all you want. Governments change. Power shifts. Less than a decade ago, Europe was saying that Russia is no longer a threat because it was welcomed into the Western economy. Things change. The present is not the future.
• anal_reactor 1y ago
  Poland takes it a step further. You don't need to carry the driving license with you because the police can check it in the system anyway.