8 ms·

You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account

205 points by rhazn 7mo ago

patrakov 7mo ago
The most important part was left out: was the application successful in the end, and how long did it take?
- xxs 7mo ago
  It's a quite straightforward use - few minutes, it uses NFC to the passport, it's very organized and well guided... except you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
  - raverbashing 7mo ago
    I'm guessing this is your card bouncing a repeat purchase from the same vendor with the same value
    - xxs 7mo ago
      That I'd not know, although it'd be very uncommon and has not happened. In the EU 3ds is a very standard process, the the payments require an explicit approval (national id cards/smartid, etc.)
      - inigyou 7mo ago
        3DS also requires a smartphone app, at least at my bank
      - raverbashing 7mo ago
        Yeah weird, I've seen some vendors reject the purchase even after a successful 3ds validation, looks like something in the vendor/payment processor (rather than the bank) side
  - dgxyz 7mo ago
    This is a common problem. I have it everywhere I go when I take my kids on holiday. Particularly ticket machines where you have to buy multiple tickets and can't add more than one to a transaction (Maltese buses are a good one). I don't get the problem with my credit card. Might just be switching cards until you find one that isn't crap.
    - pards 7mo ago
      I encountered this on the NYC subway trying to buy 4 metrocards with one credit card. No bueno.
    - xxs 7mo ago
      Indeed, it could be a common issues. Some places transposition systems even allow use of bank cards as 'ticket'
      - dgxyz 7mo ago
        Yeah I'm in London so that's what we use here. But a lot of the European transport systems just chuck it through as a single transaction so if you buy three tickets it looks like repeated attempts to transact and is blocked. Athens is another one that got me last year.
        xxs 7mo ago
        Funny - both London and Athens were in my mind when I wrote the comment.
  - aembleton 7mo ago
    I guess you could create a few virtual cards and use those.
- Timshel 7mo ago
  Did it recently, took 3min to receive confirmation, the warning it might take longer than on the app is bollocks.
headsman771 7mo ago
And they still try to pressure you to scan your face.
- xxs 7mo ago
  for visa, multiple pictires.
  - Quarrel 7mo ago
    for visa, at least when I did it, multiple pictures and full sets of all fingerprints.
- pmontra 7mo ago
  Step 2 is scan your face, step 3 is upload a photo of yourself. They seem to be the same thing.
  - xxs 7mo ago
    The scan phase is proof of liveness. Photo is a still image.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
gib444 7mo ago
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old. It's often 2-4 clicks to get to the /actual/ thing you want, with many long pages of "ok here's what this thing is. Here's what will happen next". (Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !) So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening
- smikhanov 7mo ago
  gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old Which is not a bug, but a feature of the gov.uk website, and it's the best and the most important one. 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it when you'd need to renew your passport via gov.uk.
  - lukecarr 7mo ago
    No, the GDS should definitely replace all services on gov.uk to be only accessible via MCP. "Claude, I've logged into PayPal via oAuth, now renew my passport" /s
    - dgxyz 7mo ago
      Hahaha that’s hilarious. I bet someone tried to sell them that already.
  - gib444 7mo ago
    It's a bug when you're neither 5 nor 89 or have used it 10 times before... Look, I know it's a hard problem, and GDS have a lot of talented, smart people. I appreciate making something work for both an 18 year old and an 89 year old is a hard requiement. IMHO there is nothing wrong with having those help docs easily available so you can read at your leisure, rather than being 'forced' to wade through it each time Perhaps we can agree to disagree that it's not a 'bug' based on the Government's general approach to how it treats its citizens and what it deems as a requirement (as compared to eg the Netherlands/Germany which is a bit more 'it's not our fault you're stupid', 'go read the docs!')
GuestFAUniverse 7mo ago
Pay? WTF? I wanted to visit friends there, but I'm not going to pay some highwayman.
- arrowsmith 7mo ago
  The EU is launching a similar scheme that costs €20 to apply for: https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias
  - mytailorisrich 7mo ago
    Which was all started by the US' ESTA back in 2009, which I believe now costs $40.
    - swarnie 7mo ago
      Have you filled one out lately? The questions have got a bit wild.
  - jjgreen 7mo ago
    > UK customs shits in you shoes?? WTF! >> EU customs also shits in your shoes
    - arrowsmith 7mo ago
      oh no, basic border security!
  - michh 7mo ago
    yeah, but I got the impression that the EU is very much doing it as a retaliation to the US and UK doing it. Tho they could have limited it to just those countries.
    - red_admiral 7mo ago
      The US, maybe. But wiki suggests ETIAS (the EU one) was proposed in 2016 whereas the UK ETA idea was created around 2023, so ETIAS can't be a reaction to ETA - perhaps the other way round? I'm not sure if, without Brexit, the UK would have ended up with ETIAS anyway - it's a "mostly Schengen but not exactly" thing so it would have depended on what agreement they came to.
dgxyz 7mo ago
The reason the ETA app exists is because the web is a terrible platform for doing this stuff on. The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc. The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.
- troupo 7mo ago
  > The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc. Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application. > The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
  - dgxyz 7mo ago
    Not really. It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. That requires something a little more complicated than a PHP app from the 90s. Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it?
    - troupo 7mo ago
      > It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. I never knew you can only upload one photo to a website ever. Or that you can only process one photo at a time on the server. > Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it Because gov.uk's own team has multiple talks and articles on how not everyone has access to latest and greatest tech, accesses government services through weird devices etc.
detritus 7mo ago
It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue. /s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.
- dgxyz 7mo ago
  I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app. This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
- gspr 7mo ago
  I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.
- piltdownman 7mo ago
  Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass. For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
  - georgefrowny 7mo ago
    Which is funny because for years they'd gleefully charge you 30 quid to print one at the airport if you dared to turn up with only a PDF.
  - type0 7mo ago
cjs_ac 7mo ago
After I got Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent settled status) in the UK, I had to buy a new phone that had NFC, because the new eVisa system required me to scan the chip in my passport to link it to the system. In general, the UK retains its mildly chaotic character - the 'disorderly order' that Kate Fox frequently mentions in her book Watching the English - but the immigration system is very much being tightened up due to political sentiment. As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
- miohtama 7mo ago
  "need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government" Generally, this is called a vassal state. Better to keep overlords happy.
- richrichardsson 7mo ago
  I would half like to move back to the UK, but I'm terribly worried that after jumping through all the hoops so that my EU citizen partner could come with us and be a part our children's lives that Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there). I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power is, but it sure looks like a terrible but possible future from afar. :(
  - Havoc 7mo ago
    For what it’s worth I’ve had zero problems thus far (under eu settled scheme)
    - graemep 7mo ago
      They have missed the EU settled scheme so its going to have to be a normal visa - so either the partner has to be skilled or wealthy enough to qualify, or it has to be a spouse visa.
testfrequency 7mo ago
I feel like this is so much of an overreaction to a non-issue. The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options. It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).
- koakuma-chan 7mo ago
  But why do they need to make a native app for that? It makes no sense.
  - testfrequency 7mo ago
    Convenience. Do you travel with a laptop and open it to scan your boarding pass pdf also?
    - gspr 7mo ago
      Providing it for convenience is fine. Having to accept the terms of conditions of Google or Apple as the only way is insane.
      - testfrequency 7mo ago
        Don’t accept the terms then? What is even the point of this comment when you are provided with an alternative as you make your way through the form. I feel like everyone I’m responding to just hates Apple/Google and is running GrapheneOS without play services so they hate public apps.
        koakuma-chan 7mo ago
        No, installing apps is just genuinely bad UX, at least for me, because my password manager doesn't work in apps, and I have to manually generate and copy and paste password. If creators of the app are extra stupid, they make it so that you cannot paste into the password input, so I have to enter the generated password character by character.
dcminter 7mo ago
Aside from this app issue there's another instance of bloody minded bureacracy that affects dual citizens: As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500. Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation. I hate paperwork...
- noroot 7mo ago
  My wife moved to Belgium for me 8 years ago and also has dual citizenship. She assumed it would be fine to travel on Belgium passport + ETA but that's not allowed. She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute. Silly system.
  - oncallthrow 7mo ago
    > Silly system. Frankly it strikes me as being rather silly to not have a British passport as a British citizen.
    - dcminter 7mo ago
      It costs money and my European passport is far more useful to me.
      - oncallthrow 7mo ago
        The cost of a passport is negligible (~£10 per year on average), and it’s not reasonable to expect the UK to spend a lot of money architecting the system around a very small minority of dual citizens who don’t have passports.
        dcminter 7mo ago
Oras 7mo ago
"If you want to receive emails, you better have a Gmail or Outlook"
- georgefrowny 7mo ago
  You joke, but this is something of a concern now that self hosting email is quite difficult (both for incoming spam and getting blocked as a spammer yourself).
- rhazn 7mo ago
  (author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha? A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
  - Oras 7mo ago
    I hope you take my feedback with an open mind as I don't mean anything personal. Your article is an example of people who look at things through their own lens rather than the general one. I'm certain 95% of the population would be using Apple or Android, and the instructions on the Gov UK site are made for the majority, not for the edge cases. My comment falls exactly within that, for most people, they define email as Gmail or Outlook. There are people who use Proton, iCloud, or personal domain emails, but the instructions will always mention what the average person would know and identify.
    - rhazn 7mo ago
      I can understand the feedback and I agree if you are building a product, you want to make it easy to use and intuitive for the majority. In my opinion, as a government you have an obligation to create processes differently though. You should provide and focus on a flow that is 100% in your/the citizens control with the messaging to match. So in your email example, I think the governments messaging must be neutrally on email (and arguably the government should provide free Email accounts to citizens), but they could add convenience buttons to open GMail or similar. But I recognize my opinion is probably an outlier, especially on hackernews. I can see your point as well and taken with an open mind :).
chrishannah 7mo ago
Is it really a lot of work? You can search "UK ETA", find the main page: https://www.gov.uk/eta https://www.gov.uk/eta Then click "Apply for an ETA" and you're brought to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.
- sylware 7mo ago
  And of course, this is not a web app but a web site with basic HTML forms not requiring a whatng cartel web engine?
- nixass 7mo ago
  That's... What the article is about
  - danlitt 7mo ago
    >>> How Many Hoops Are Too Many Hoops? >> It's really not that many hoops > That's... What the article is about I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
  - rcxdude 7mo ago
    But the article seems to take a very roundabout way for it, and still doesn't link the direct version. I just did the same thing, googling 'UK ETA', clicked the top result, then clicked the most salient link on the result page ('Apply'), then clicked the most salient button on the next page which is a big green 'apply now button', though it is after the links to the app (but those links are not big and green). Admittedly I do have a decent amount of experience with the UK government's website which tends to have this pattern of a few pages of explanations about the thing before you get to the form you need to fill in, but it surprises me that it was that hard to find. (Edit: ah, no, I see: the next steps are quite dark-pattern pushing you towards the app. Yeah, that's quite shitty)
  - taffronaut 7mo ago
danlitt 7mo ago
Why does the title say "You better have a ... account" when the end of the article is literally a link to the form which does not require an account? I agree that the UI here is bad, but I feel like the title is just misrepresenting the content of the article.
- rhazn 7mo ago
  (article author here): It's over the top from my annoyed reaction when I encountered the clickthrough. I am mostly annoyed at how much EU governments keep pushing native apps for government services, thus making them dependent on Google/Apple. The fallback exists here, but it is very much not what you are encouraged to use. I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
  - jeroenhd 7mo ago
    > EU governments The UK left the EU a while ago. UK citizens traveling to the EU will require an ETIAS authorization which also comes with an app at the end of the year, but that's not live yet. The website that's been prepared so far does mention the ability to file online, though.
    - rhazn 7mo ago
      Yeah, sorry. I am old and like the UK, so I still consider them Europeans at heart.
  - herrherrmann 7mo ago
    It doesn’t really seem like humorous hyperbole, though. It’s currently just factually incorrect. And it’s in your power to fix it, especially if you agree now in retrospect!
    - rhazn 7mo ago
      Not sure I can change the submission anymore. I am happy with the title as it is for my own blog, it just created some irritation here. I am not a native speaker, so my interpretation might be wrong, but I tried to evoke the semi-serious but good-natured "You went to the bakery? You better brought me a snack as well!" meaning with "better have", not the "must have" meaning.
gertrunde 7mo ago
One of the more fun related items... You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen. On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle... It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do. Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before. (There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport). And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.
- extraduder_ire 7mo ago
  Additionally: An Irish passport gets you into the UK just as well as a UK one does.
  - dghf 7mo ago
    This new rule might be problematic for those Northern Irish people who identify solely as Irish (as is their right under the Good Friday Agreement) and who only hold an Irish passport: unless things have changed since the DeSouza case [0], the UK Government and UK law treat everyone born in Northern Ireland (as long as at least one of their parents meets citizenship or residency requirements) as a British citizen, regardless of their opinions on the matter. The UK Government holds that this is compatible with the GFA because you can renounce your British citizenship; but you have to pay hundreds of pounds to do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza
- andsoitis 7mo ago
  > It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it This is a pretty common practice for most countries.
  - dcminter 7mo ago
    Sure, but it was a change that was slipped through under the radar without any proper justification for it (the situation wasn't even clarified for dual nationals until quite close to the deadline).
sylware 7mo ago
Wallet codes bought at local monetary terminals to increase the balance of an account seems to be the less too much 'insecure' way to do things and to stay away from a hard dependency on whatng cartel web engines.
red_admiral 7mo ago
I call BS. The title is incorrect, and the contents are deceptive. If you visit the gov.uk page from a mobile, you get a suggestion for the app. If you visit on _desktop_, you get https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply ( reached from https://www.gov.uk/eta https://www.gov.uk/eta ) which offers app and online (browser) options just beneath each other. Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).
- ale42 7mo ago
  Sure but if you click on the "online one" you still have to skip two pages offering you to use the app instead. The same pages you see in the article.
- rhazn 7mo ago
  (article author here): The big green "Start Now" button on https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply takes me to the same double push-for-the-app flow in the article (on desktop firefox). But otherwise true, should probably have searched for "UK ETA", but coming from the announcement, that is very clear you need the app, searching for "UK ETA App" felt natural.
  - dwroberts 7mo ago
    There is a link that says “I cannot use the app” and at the bottom of the page there is “Apply online instead” which takes you here, and you just press next: https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-travel-authorisation/how-to-apply https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-...
  - red_admiral 7mo ago
    I accept your rebuttal. Not needing to apply for an ETA myself, I found the big green button and stopped there.
spwa4 7mo ago
No worries! The UK government has, just like all EU governments, announced again and again how they're going to become completely independent of US and China. Software. Hardware. Everything. This is just yet another example of that. (another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification) This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway. I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ... I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it. It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.
edtech_dev 7mo ago
Visited the UK recently and had to obviously go through the same thing; had to click "I just want to use the online thing" 3 times. Was very frustrating. Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app. It's quite bleak.
dzdt 7mo ago
A related thing that bugs me is how many scam search results come up and are prioritised if you search for "uk eta" or similar. On google for me the real site is sandwiched in positon 4 after 3 and before 2 additional paid sponsored scam sites each with large block sections in the search results.
- dcminter 7mo ago
  Much the same with the US ESTA requirement. I miss the good old green Visa Waiver forms that we had to illegibly scribble on during the flight over :)
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  Google makes money from the scam sites, but not from the government.
- BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
  Scammers pay the the same good money for advertising space as legitimate companies. Google can profit from it, so there's no incentive to kick bad actors of their advertising platform.
marssaxman 7mo ago
Glad to see this posted - I have a UK trip coming up in a few months, and as a conscientious objector to the smartphone duopoly, this article will save me some irritation.
ozlikethewizard 7mo ago
Hey some minister signed off a multimillion pound deal to get that app developed (to a firm that definitely no one in his family or business circles has stakes in), so we better get our money's worth! In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.
eqvinox 7mo ago
"Scan your face with your device, if it has a camera." And if my device doesn't have a camera I don't need to scan my face? wtf?
register 7mo ago
Completely agree. I had to apply for the ETA recently and the experience is terrible.
karteum 7mo ago
More and more things require a Google-certified Android phone (and will not work with jailbroken/rooted phones, unlocked bootloader, and so one : banking apps of course, but also medical apps (e.g. Doctolib in France), ID apps (e.g. France identité), and a lot more. This "digital sovereignity" hype makes me laugh since in practice government apps are literally enforcing Google locks, effectively excluding people using LineageOS/MicroG and other similar open roms.
jakub_g 7mo ago
The thing about mobile apps is that majority of people likely prefer it. Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing) Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone). As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app. And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible. The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.
- survirtual 7mo ago
  Use of an app is not necessarily the problem. Requiring Google Play or the App Store is. We should be able to use apps without being in walled gardens.
aanet 7mo ago
As somebody who JUST got the UK ETA recently (~2 weeks ago), I can talk about my experience. Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA. The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop). So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21). Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down). "You are holding it wrong" x 10000 I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers. I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences. I hope the app developers are reading this. I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.
- jamespo 7mo ago
  At least you didn't get asked for details of all your social media
  - aanet 7mo ago
    yeah, true... but then I'm not on social media^[1]. Gave up on those things way before social media fatigue became en vogue. I was just frustrated with the whole app experience. Some people had a smoother experience, which is fine. Mine was terrible, and I'm sure my parents would not have been able to use this at all. [1] I am still on LI... which is something I want to give up next.
- 7mo ago
Brajeshwar 7mo ago
On the other hand, Indians are rejoicing that this might actually be much easier for us. We will still be going through the Visa Application, but we will get the digital version of the e-visa (I read that a physical copy can also be printed). In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability. https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.
librasteve 7mo ago
This is a bit rich given the draconian rules the EU is now imposing on brits. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24xyjplp4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24xyjplp4o - a remainer
- rhazn 7mo ago
  I am the author and I love the UK, am sad about you leaving, and I am as angry about similar practices in EU countries. My gripe is with the pushing of foreign controlled apps, not the immigration rules. I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
  - librasteve 7mo ago
    keep up the anger! EU is the only hope for non-US domination
varispeed 7mo ago
The gov.uk designs are usually good, but this one... I had friend coming to visit from overseas and they were unable to fill it in. It's too confusing. So the visit is postponed.
oliwarner 7mo ago
The title suggests the app is required. The article clearly shows it's a few prompts, each with secondary ~"continue without the app" links. I get the annoyance of being asked multiple times, but it's not that bad.
NoImmatureAdHom 7mo ago
As of six months ago the non-smartphone flow did not work. Totally unsurprising for the UK, of course.
nobodyandproud 7mo ago
Would someone briefly explain the real reason why, for the ETA?
deafpolygon 7mo ago
If you are on a mobile browser, yeah - it pushes you towards the app. But if you are on a desktop browser, you can find the link fairly directly.
lqet 7mo ago
You better also have a UK phone number ready! We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants. We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.
- null_deref 7mo ago
  Such a strange behavior did you find out what the reason was? I bet this is not a secret deal with the phone service providers
  - lqet 7mo ago
    We assumed that they charge some kind of penalty fee if you do not show up via your phone number, and this (most likely 3rd party) system only works with UK numbers.
    - roryirvine 7mo ago
      There's no such service, and it's very unlikely that there ever would be given the attitude of the UK telecoms regulator. There are things like premium rate phone lines (which you can dial for entering competitions) and special SMS short codes that allow you to send small amounts which get charged to your phone bill (typically used for charity campaigns - eg. "Text 'GIVE £5' to 71234"). But both of those systems require you to take specific action - there's nothing that would allow someone else to apply a charge to your bill on your behalf without your direct involvement. OfCom would have kittens if anyone were ever to suggest setting up something like that. It's likely that the restaurants in this case were simply confused by a number starting with a + rather than a digit.
- dwroberts 7mo ago
  This is not a normal occurrence and to be honest it’s surprising that these places had no way to book online
paxys 7mo ago
Does the UK force you to disclose years worth of private messaging and social media history at the immigration checkpoint? If not, no American should be opining about this.
IanCal 7mo ago
> Can you spot where you would find alternatives to using the app on this page? I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.

205 points by rhazn 7mo ago

patrakov 7mo ago

The most important part was left out: was the application successful in the end, and how long did it take?

xxs 7mo ago
It's a quite straightforward use - few minutes, it uses NFC to the passport, it's very organized and well guided... except you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
- raverbashing 7mo ago
  I'm guessing this is your card bouncing a repeat purchase from the same vendor with the same value
  - xxs 7mo ago
    That I'd not know, although it'd be very uncommon and has not happened. In the EU 3ds is a very standard process, the the payments require an explicit approval (national id cards/smartid, etc.)
    - inigyou 7mo ago
      3DS also requires a smartphone app, at least at my bank
    - raverbashing 7mo ago
      Yeah weird, I've seen some vendors reject the purchase even after a successful 3ds validation, looks like something in the vendor/payment processor (rather than the bank) side
- dgxyz 7mo ago
  This is a common problem. I have it everywhere I go when I take my kids on holiday. Particularly ticket machines where you have to buy multiple tickets and can't add more than one to a transaction (Maltese buses are a good one). I don't get the problem with my credit card. Might just be switching cards until you find one that isn't crap.
  - pards 7mo ago
    I encountered this on the NYC subway trying to buy 4 metrocards with one credit card. No bueno.
  - xxs 7mo ago
    Indeed, it could be a common issues. Some places transposition systems even allow use of bank cards as 'ticket'
    - dgxyz 7mo ago
      Yeah I'm in London so that's what we use here. But a lot of the European transport systems just chuck it through as a single transaction so if you buy three tickets it looks like repeated attempts to transact and is blocked. Athens is another one that got me last year.
      - xxs 7mo ago
        Funny - both London and Athens were in my mind when I wrote the comment.
- aembleton 7mo ago
  I guess you could create a few virtual cards and use those.
Timshel 7mo ago
Did it recently, took 3min to receive confirmation, the warning it might take longer than on the app is bollocks.

headsman771 7mo ago

And they still try to pressure you to scan your face.

xxs 7mo ago
for visa, multiple pictires.
- Quarrel 7mo ago
  for visa, at least when I did it, multiple pictures and full sets of all fingerprints.
pmontra 7mo ago
Step 2 is scan your face, step 3 is upload a photo of yourself. They seem to be the same thing.
- xxs 7mo ago
  The scan phase is proof of liveness. Photo is a still image.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

gib444 7mo ago

gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old. It's often 2-4 clicks to get to the /actual/ thing you want, with many long pages of "ok here's what this thing is. Here's what will happen next". (Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !) So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening

smikhanov 7mo ago
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old Which is not a bug, but a feature of the gov.uk website, and it's the best and the most important one. 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it when you'd need to renew your passport via gov.uk.
- lukecarr 7mo ago
  No, the GDS should definitely replace all services on gov.uk to be only accessible via MCP. "Claude, I've logged into PayPal via oAuth, now renew my passport" /s
  - dgxyz 7mo ago
    Hahaha that’s hilarious. I bet someone tried to sell them that already.
- gib444 7mo ago
  It's a bug when you're neither 5 nor 89 or have used it 10 times before... Look, I know it's a hard problem, and GDS have a lot of talented, smart people. I appreciate making something work for both an 18 year old and an 89 year old is a hard requiement. IMHO there is nothing wrong with having those help docs easily available so you can read at your leisure, rather than being 'forced' to wade through it each time Perhaps we can agree to disagree that it's not a 'bug' based on the Government's general approach to how it treats its citizens and what it deems as a requirement (as compared to eg the Netherlands/Germany which is a bit more 'it's not our fault you're stupid', 'go read the docs!')

GuestFAUniverse 7mo ago

Pay? WTF? I wanted to visit friends there, but I'm not going to pay some highwayman.

arrowsmith 7mo ago
The EU is launching a similar scheme that costs €20 to apply for: https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias
- mytailorisrich 7mo ago
  Which was all started by the US' ESTA back in 2009, which I believe now costs $40.
  - swarnie 7mo ago
    Have you filled one out lately? The questions have got a bit wild.
- jjgreen 7mo ago
  > UK customs shits in you shoes?? WTF! >> EU customs also shits in your shoes
  - arrowsmith 7mo ago
    oh no, basic border security!
- michh 7mo ago
  yeah, but I got the impression that the EU is very much doing it as a retaliation to the US and UK doing it. Tho they could have limited it to just those countries.
  - red_admiral 7mo ago
    The US, maybe. But wiki suggests ETIAS (the EU one) was proposed in 2016 whereas the UK ETA idea was created around 2023, so ETIAS can't be a reaction to ETA - perhaps the other way round? I'm not sure if, without Brexit, the UK would have ended up with ETIAS anyway - it's a "mostly Schengen but not exactly" thing so it would have depended on what agreement they came to.

dgxyz 7mo ago

The reason the ETA app exists is because the web is a terrible platform for doing this stuff on. The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc. The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.

troupo 7mo ago
> The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc. Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application. > The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
- dgxyz 7mo ago
  Not really. It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. That requires something a little more complicated than a PHP app from the 90s. Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it?
  - troupo 7mo ago
    > It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. I never knew you can only upload one photo to a website ever. Or that you can only process one photo at a time on the server. > Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it Because gov.uk's own team has multiple talks and articles on how not everyone has access to latest and greatest tech, accesses government services through weird devices etc.

detritus 7mo ago

It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue. /s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.

dgxyz 7mo ago
I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app. This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
gspr 7mo ago
I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.
piltdownman 7mo ago
Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass. For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
- georgefrowny 7mo ago
  Which is funny because for years they'd gleefully charge you 30 quid to print one at the airport if you dared to turn up with only a PDF.
- type0 7mo ago

cjs_ac 7mo ago

After I got Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent settled status) in the UK, I had to buy a new phone that had NFC, because the new eVisa system required me to scan the chip in my passport to link it to the system. In general, the UK retains its mildly chaotic character - the 'disorderly order' that Kate Fox frequently mentions in her book Watching the English - but the immigration system is very much being tightened up due to political sentiment. As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.

miohtama 7mo ago
"need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government" Generally, this is called a vassal state. Better to keep overlords happy.
richrichardsson 7mo ago
I would half like to move back to the UK, but I'm terribly worried that after jumping through all the hoops so that my EU citizen partner could come with us and be a part our children's lives that Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there). I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power is, but it sure looks like a terrible but possible future from afar. :(
- Havoc 7mo ago
  For what it’s worth I’ve had zero problems thus far (under eu settled scheme)
  - graemep 7mo ago
    They have missed the EU settled scheme so its going to have to be a normal visa - so either the partner has to be skilled or wealthy enough to qualify, or it has to be a spouse visa.

testfrequency 7mo ago

I feel like this is so much of an overreaction to a non-issue. The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options. It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).

koakuma-chan 7mo ago
But why do they need to make a native app for that? It makes no sense.
- testfrequency 7mo ago
  Convenience. Do you travel with a laptop and open it to scan your boarding pass pdf also?
  - gspr 7mo ago
    Providing it for convenience is fine. Having to accept the terms of conditions of Google or Apple as the only way is insane.
    - testfrequency 7mo ago
      Don’t accept the terms then? What is even the point of this comment when you are provided with an alternative as you make your way through the form. I feel like everyone I’m responding to just hates Apple/Google and is running GrapheneOS without play services so they hate public apps.
      - koakuma-chan 7mo ago
        No, installing apps is just genuinely bad UX, at least for me, because my password manager doesn't work in apps, and I have to manually generate and copy and paste password. If creators of the app are extra stupid, they make it so that you cannot paste into the password input, so I have to enter the generated password character by character.

dcminter 7mo ago

Aside from this app issue there's another instance of bloody minded bureacracy that affects dual citizens: As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500. Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation. I hate paperwork...

noroot 7mo ago
My wife moved to Belgium for me 8 years ago and also has dual citizenship. She assumed it would be fine to travel on Belgium passport + ETA but that's not allowed. She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute. Silly system.
- oncallthrow 7mo ago
  > Silly system. Frankly it strikes me as being rather silly to not have a British passport as a British citizen.
  - dcminter 7mo ago
    It costs money and my European passport is far more useful to me.
    - oncallthrow 7mo ago
      The cost of a passport is negligible (~£10 per year on average), and it’s not reasonable to expect the UK to spend a lot of money architecting the system around a very small minority of dual citizens who don’t have passports.
      - dcminter 7mo ago

Oras 7mo ago

"If you want to receive emails, you better have a Gmail or Outlook"

georgefrowny 7mo ago
You joke, but this is something of a concern now that self hosting email is quite difficult (both for incoming spam and getting blocked as a spammer yourself).
rhazn 7mo ago
(author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha? A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
- Oras 7mo ago
  I hope you take my feedback with an open mind as I don't mean anything personal. Your article is an example of people who look at things through their own lens rather than the general one. I'm certain 95% of the population would be using Apple or Android, and the instructions on the Gov UK site are made for the majority, not for the edge cases. My comment falls exactly within that, for most people, they define email as Gmail or Outlook. There are people who use Proton, iCloud, or personal domain emails, but the instructions will always mention what the average person would know and identify.
  - rhazn 7mo ago
    I can understand the feedback and I agree if you are building a product, you want to make it easy to use and intuitive for the majority. In my opinion, as a government you have an obligation to create processes differently though. You should provide and focus on a flow that is 100% in your/the citizens control with the messaging to match. So in your email example, I think the governments messaging must be neutrally on email (and arguably the government should provide free Email accounts to citizens), but they could add convenience buttons to open GMail or similar. But I recognize my opinion is probably an outlier, especially on hackernews. I can see your point as well and taken with an open mind :).

chrishannah 7mo ago

Is it really a lot of work? You can search "UK ETA", find the main page: https://www.gov.uk/eta https://www.gov.uk/eta Then click "Apply for an ETA" and you're brought to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.

sylware 7mo ago
And of course, this is not a web app but a web site with basic HTML forms not requiring a whatng cartel web engine?
nixass 7mo ago
That's... What the article is about
- danlitt 7mo ago
  >>> How Many Hoops Are Too Many Hoops? >> It's really not that many hoops > That's... What the article is about I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  But the article seems to take a very roundabout way for it, and still doesn't link the direct version. I just did the same thing, googling 'UK ETA', clicked the top result, then clicked the most salient link on the result page ('Apply'), then clicked the most salient button on the next page which is a big green 'apply now button', though it is after the links to the app (but those links are not big and green). Admittedly I do have a decent amount of experience with the UK government's website which tends to have this pattern of a few pages of explanations about the thing before you get to the form you need to fill in, but it surprises me that it was that hard to find. (Edit: ah, no, I see: the next steps are quite dark-pattern pushing you towards the app. Yeah, that's quite shitty)
- taffronaut 7mo ago

danlitt 7mo ago

Why does the title say "You better have a ... account" when the end of the article is literally a link to the form which does not require an account? I agree that the UI here is bad, but I feel like the title is just misrepresenting the content of the article.

rhazn 7mo ago
(article author here): It's over the top from my annoyed reaction when I encountered the clickthrough. I am mostly annoyed at how much EU governments keep pushing native apps for government services, thus making them dependent on Google/Apple. The fallback exists here, but it is very much not what you are encouraged to use. I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
- jeroenhd 7mo ago
  > EU governments The UK left the EU a while ago. UK citizens traveling to the EU will require an ETIAS authorization which also comes with an app at the end of the year, but that's not live yet. The website that's been prepared so far does mention the ability to file online, though.
  - rhazn 7mo ago
    Yeah, sorry. I am old and like the UK, so I still consider them Europeans at heart.
- herrherrmann 7mo ago
  It doesn’t really seem like humorous hyperbole, though. It’s currently just factually incorrect. And it’s in your power to fix it, especially if you agree now in retrospect!
  - rhazn 7mo ago
    Not sure I can change the submission anymore. I am happy with the title as it is for my own blog, it just created some irritation here. I am not a native speaker, so my interpretation might be wrong, but I tried to evoke the semi-serious but good-natured "You went to the bakery? You better brought me a snack as well!" meaning with "better have", not the "must have" meaning.

gertrunde 7mo ago

One of the more fun related items... You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen. On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle... It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do. Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before. (There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport). And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.

extraduder_ire 7mo ago
Additionally: An Irish passport gets you into the UK just as well as a UK one does.
- dghf 7mo ago
  This new rule might be problematic for those Northern Irish people who identify solely as Irish (as is their right under the Good Friday Agreement) and who only hold an Irish passport: unless things have changed since the DeSouza case [0], the UK Government and UK law treat everyone born in Northern Ireland (as long as at least one of their parents meets citizenship or residency requirements) as a British citizen, regardless of their opinions on the matter. The UK Government holds that this is compatible with the GFA because you can renounce your British citizenship; but you have to pay hundreds of pounds to do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza
andsoitis 7mo ago
> It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it This is a pretty common practice for most countries.
- dcminter 7mo ago
  Sure, but it was a change that was slipped through under the radar without any proper justification for it (the situation wasn't even clarified for dual nationals until quite close to the deadline).

sylware 7mo ago

Wallet codes bought at local monetary terminals to increase the balance of an account seems to be the less too much 'insecure' way to do things and to stay away from a hard dependency on whatng cartel web engines.

red_admiral 7mo ago

I call BS. The title is incorrect, and the contents are deceptive. If you visit the gov.uk page from a mobile, you get a suggestion for the app. If you visit on _desktop_, you get https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply ( reached from https://www.gov.uk/eta https://www.gov.uk/eta ) which offers app and online (browser) options just beneath each other. Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).

ale42 7mo ago
Sure but if you click on the "online one" you still have to skip two pages offering you to use the app instead. The same pages you see in the article.
rhazn 7mo ago
(article author here): The big green "Start Now" button on https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply takes me to the same double push-for-the-app flow in the article (on desktop firefox). But otherwise true, should probably have searched for "UK ETA", but coming from the announcement, that is very clear you need the app, searching for "UK ETA App" felt natural.
- dwroberts 7mo ago
  There is a link that says “I cannot use the app” and at the bottom of the page there is “Apply online instead” which takes you here, and you just press next: https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-travel-authorisation/how-to-apply https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-...
- red_admiral 7mo ago
  I accept your rebuttal. Not needing to apply for an ETA myself, I found the big green button and stopped there.

spwa4 7mo ago

No worries! The UK government has, just like all EU governments, announced again and again how they're going to become completely independent of US and China. Software. Hardware. Everything. This is just yet another example of that. (another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification) This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway. I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ... I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it. It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.

edtech_dev 7mo ago

Visited the UK recently and had to obviously go through the same thing; had to click "I just want to use the online thing" 3 times. Was very frustrating. Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app. It's quite bleak.

dzdt 7mo ago

A related thing that bugs me is how many scam search results come up and are prioritised if you search for "uk eta" or similar. On google for me the real site is sandwiched in positon 4 after 3 and before 2 additional paid sponsored scam sites each with large block sections in the search results.

dcminter 7mo ago
Much the same with the US ESTA requirement. I miss the good old green Visa Waiver forms that we had to illegibly scribble on during the flight over :)
jacquesm 7mo ago
Google makes money from the scam sites, but not from the government.
BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
Scammers pay the the same good money for advertising space as legitimate companies. Google can profit from it, so there's no incentive to kick bad actors of their advertising platform.

marssaxman 7mo ago

Glad to see this posted - I have a UK trip coming up in a few months, and as a conscientious objector to the smartphone duopoly, this article will save me some irritation.

ozlikethewizard 7mo ago

Hey some minister signed off a multimillion pound deal to get that app developed (to a firm that definitely no one in his family or business circles has stakes in), so we better get our money's worth! In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.

eqvinox 7mo ago

"Scan your face with your device, if it has a camera." And if my device doesn't have a camera I don't need to scan my face? wtf?

Completely agree. I had to apply for the ETA recently and the experience is terrible.

karteum 7mo ago

More and more things require a Google-certified Android phone (and will not work with jailbroken/rooted phones, unlocked bootloader, and so one : banking apps of course, but also medical apps (e.g. Doctolib in France), ID apps (e.g. France identité), and a lot more. This "digital sovereignity" hype makes me laugh since in practice government apps are literally enforcing Google locks, effectively excluding people using LineageOS/MicroG and other similar open roms.

jakub_g 7mo ago

The thing about mobile apps is that majority of people likely prefer it. Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing) Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone). As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app. And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible. The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.

survirtual 7mo ago
Use of an app is not necessarily the problem. Requiring Google Play or the App Store is. We should be able to use apps without being in walled gardens.

aanet 7mo ago

As somebody who JUST got the UK ETA recently (~2 weeks ago), I can talk about my experience. Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA. The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop). So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21). Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down). "You are holding it wrong" x 10000 I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers. I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences. I hope the app developers are reading this. I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.

jamespo 7mo ago
At least you didn't get asked for details of all your social media
- aanet 7mo ago
  yeah, true... but then I'm not on social media^[1]. Gave up on those things way before social media fatigue became en vogue. I was just frustrated with the whole app experience. Some people had a smoother experience, which is fine. Mine was terrible, and I'm sure my parents would not have been able to use this at all. [1] I am still on LI... which is something I want to give up next.
7mo ago

Brajeshwar 7mo ago

On the other hand, Indians are rejoicing that this might actually be much easier for us. We will still be going through the Visa Application, but we will get the digital version of the e-visa (I read that a physical copy can also be printed). In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability. https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.

librasteve 7mo ago

This is a bit rich given the draconian rules the EU is now imposing on brits. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24xyjplp4o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24xyjplp4o - a remainer

rhazn 7mo ago
I am the author and I love the UK, am sad about you leaving, and I am as angry about similar practices in EU countries. My gripe is with the pushing of foreign controlled apps, not the immigration rules. I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
- librasteve 7mo ago
  keep up the anger! EU is the only hope for non-US domination

varispeed 7mo ago

The gov.uk designs are usually good, but this one... I had friend coming to visit from overseas and they were unable to fill it in. It's too confusing. So the visit is postponed.

oliwarner 7mo ago

The title suggests the app is required. The article clearly shows it's a few prompts, each with secondary ~"continue without the app" links. I get the annoyance of being asked multiple times, but it's not that bad.

NoImmatureAdHom 7mo ago

As of six months ago the non-smartphone flow did not work. Totally unsurprising for the UK, of course.

nobodyandproud 7mo ago

Would someone briefly explain the real reason why, for the ETA?

deafpolygon 7mo ago

If you are on a mobile browser, yeah - it pushes you towards the app. But if you are on a desktop browser, you can find the link fairly directly.

lqet 7mo ago

You better also have a UK phone number ready! We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants. We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.

null_deref 7mo ago
Such a strange behavior did you find out what the reason was? I bet this is not a secret deal with the phone service providers
- lqet 7mo ago
  We assumed that they charge some kind of penalty fee if you do not show up via your phone number, and this (most likely 3rd party) system only works with UK numbers.
  - roryirvine 7mo ago
    There's no such service, and it's very unlikely that there ever would be given the attitude of the UK telecoms regulator. There are things like premium rate phone lines (which you can dial for entering competitions) and special SMS short codes that allow you to send small amounts which get charged to your phone bill (typically used for charity campaigns - eg. "Text 'GIVE £5' to 71234"). But both of those systems require you to take specific action - there's nothing that would allow someone else to apply a charge to your bill on your behalf without your direct involvement. OfCom would have kittens if anyone were ever to suggest setting up something like that. It's likely that the restaurants in this case were simply confused by a number starting with a + rather than a digit.
dwroberts 7mo ago
This is not a normal occurrence and to be honest it’s surprising that these places had no way to book online

paxys 7mo ago

Does the UK force you to disclose years worth of private messaging and social media history at the immigration checkpoint? If not, no American should be opining about this.

IanCal 7mo ago

> Can you spot where you would find alternatives to using the app on this page? I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.