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In Switzerland you are forced to receive an SMS code to your phone on every portal in every public space everywhere to establish your identity on every network.
by greenavocado 11mo ago
In Switzerland you are forced to receive an SMS code to your phone on every portal in every public space everywhere to establish your identity on every network. No SMS = No public wifi anywhere in Switzerland.
- Kozmik1 11mo agoThat's a funny choice, I thought Europe was done with SMS. I can see this 1-to-1 mapping with other cellphone derived messaging like Whatsapp, etc being an issue for privacy but it's certainly possible to have multiple phones.
- pnw 11mo agoHow would an SMS code sent to a phone number be traced to the specific user? Anonymous VOIP numbers are plentiful.
- afavour 11mo agoI imagine they would block anonymous VOIP numbers.
- greenavocado 11mo agoYou need to show identification to get a SIM card. You can't receive the text message without cellular service. I had to show my passport to get a SIM card.
- pnw 10mo agoAnonymous SIM cards are available e.g. https://www.phreeli.com/ https://www.phreeli.com/
- elashri 11mo agoThe reason is that the law in Switzerland requires identification of the user of free internet services [1]. So it is not just common practice [1] https://www.gva.ch/Site/Passagers/Shopping/Services/Business-multimedia/free-wifi-gva https://www.gva.ch/Site/Passagers/Shopping/Services/Business...