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Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#221

Post by tpush »

nec4b wrote: post #206
tpush wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. One can oppose (religiously motivated or not) genital mutilation on purely humanistic grounds, completely divorced from any religious concerns. Banning building minarets has no such justification; just blatant xenophobia.

I guess where you come from all building codes are blatant xenophobia, because there can't possible any other reason as fear from stranger to disallow some buildings.

The point isn't that every banning of a style of building is xenophobia, but that in this particular instance it is.

Making 'can't build minarets' part of your constitution isn't some local law building code thing; it's motivated by xenophobia.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#222

Post by Nextgrid »

Threeve303 wrote: post #189
PoignardAzur wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth The whole "centralized ID means your government will oppress minorities" narrative seems like a mostly american concept. I imagine part of it is due with the US's particularly bad history with minorities, and part of it is a general defiance against any kind of centralization t…

It's odd how we talk about something like centralized identification without the other areas of privacy limiting changes we are experiencing. Online we are tracked, logged and categorized like no other time in history. Even the basic means of conducting a business transaction leaves a digital trail whether it's a wire transfer, credit card transaction or bitcoin payment. Authoritarian countries have combined a cashle…

We can very well have laws that restrict what ID can be required for - so it would be illegal to ask for ID for certain things (you shouldn't be required to present your ID to buy groceries for example).

But for things where requiring an ID is already accepted (banking, etc) or inherently necessary (interacting with the government, like filing taxes), a robust, digital ID system would be much better than a paper-based system vulnerable to fraud and human error.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#223

Post by avereveard »

genericacct wrote: post #156
avereveard wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our country rolled out two certification based systems (Carta Nazionale Servizi which then got rolled into the Carta di Identità Elettronica), plus a federation based system built around SAML (Sistema Pubblico di Identità Digitale) where you can access to most italian bureoucracy. And we're talking about Italy, not some first rated technological paradise.

Yes and now your picture, a picture of your id card, your email and telephone are in the hands of the same people who store banking passwords in plaintext..

because of the certificate inside, the id card without the pin is worthless; having the identity split from authorization is an absolute win. compare and contrast with the SSN number.

also, the government already owns all my data, from birth onward. the authentication system makes it so forgery is much harder from the officials themselves, so this protects me from that as well.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#224

Post by XorNot »

bitcharmer wrote: post #205
marcod wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that same system also voted on banning Muslim face coverings ("Experts estimate that at most a few dozen Muslim women wear full-face coverings in the country of 8.5 million people."), while a pandemic is going on and face coverings for protection are recommended. https://apnews.com/article/health-legislation-coronavirus-pa...

What's wrong with banning a backwards custom that limits women's rights?

Because the presumption is that the women in question are being forced to do this and don't want to.

But your solution is to implement a law which punishes the victim, rather then doing anything about their presumed victimizer.

If the women who didn't want to wear the covering didn't want to wear it, what is stopping them from simply not doing it to start with? The answer of course is husband's, brothers, family etc. and probably that they'd be recognized in their community.

But this is someone's religion - a fair bit more important to them then the laws of the state in a lot of cases. So you haven't answered how you're going to protect those women from being targeted and forced to simply never leave the house, if they are being targeted by people who are forcing them to do something they don't want to.

Your law offers no solution to this - and again - implements itself by targeting the apparent victims it proposes to protect with punishment.

Setting aside that the government can stay the hell out of what I choose to wear, this is just a monumentally stupid approach to anything.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#225

Post by [deleted] »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #144
xxpor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't. Europeans consistently wildly overestimate the difference in cultures between countries. The language barriers probably don't help there.

Compared to what? Are cultural difference between US, Canada and mexico any greater than those between Switzerland, Italy and Russia?

[deleted]

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#226

Post by tialaramex »

jeffrallen wrote: post #150
ncphil wrote: post #81

"... almost no government has the IT capacity and resources to single-handedly develop an eID quickly and to the appropriate standards." Bullshit. We're talking identity management here. Any government that can't handle that internally doesn't deserve to exist. What that's really about is feathering the nests of tech industry donors (and/or the non-tech middlemen or middlewomen who seem to grow like weeds around the…

I don't think you could do it in six months, but the good news is you wouldn't need to. Passports already have an x509 certificate in them saying, "we are the government, and this is Jeff". So the government already know how to do this, they just were trying to give a gift to their buddies in private industry and they got caught and got their hand slapped by the citizens. There's actually nothing new here: digital ID…

> Passports already have an x509 certificate in them saying, "we are the government, and this is Jeff"

No they don't but I can see why you might think that.

ePassports (the ones with the stylised "chip" image on the cover) do have X.509 certificates baked into them. And ePassports do say "We are the government, and this is Jeff" (if you are Jeff) but that's not what the X.509 certificate says.

Each X.509 certificate is one of a relatively small number minted by your government which says "We are the government of country X and this is a public document signing key".

Then the passports all contain raw data (such as a photograph and summary information about their subject) with this certificate and a signature over the raw passport data that can be authenticated with the public signing key.

So there's an X.509 certificate but it isn't for Jeff, and there's data about Jeff, but it isn't in an X.509 certificate.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#227

Post by zorked »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #144
xxpor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't. Europeans consistently wildly overestimate the difference in cultures between countries. The language barriers probably don't help there.

Compared to what? Are cultural difference between US, Canada and mexico any greater than those between Switzerland, Italy and Russia?

Yes, of course, each of those countries is internally very diverse, and in relation to the others.

Each of those countries was made by a mix of native, European, African and Asian peoples of different kinds, in different proportions, at different times. Europe is made of just Europeans, and immigration is a very recent thing.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#228

Post by dghughes »

jeffrallen wrote: post #136
101008 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So taking a screenshot of a Instagram convesation and sharing on Twitter or Facebook or whenever is ilegal and against the constitution?

Yes, and in fact avoiding abuses like this are part of the digital education offered in school. People are also pretty careful about asking for permission before publishing a person's photo. Swiss discretion is not only a marketing tactic, it is also a good habit many people keep.

>...avoiding abuses like this are part of the digital education offered in school.

I would hope that schools teach "don't publish anything you don't want shared" that would be smarter.

If I post an add in a newspaper, many copies are sold, and then someone copies my add that should be expected. The Internet is one big newspaper it's a public forum and privacy shouldn't be expected or assumed.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#229

Post by lwkl »

bitcharmer wrote: post #205
marcod wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that same system also voted on banning Muslim face coverings ("Experts estimate that at most a few dozen Muslim women wear full-face coverings in the country of 8.5 million people."), while a pandemic is going on and face coverings for protection are recommended. https://apnews.com/article/health-legislation-coronavirus-pa...

What's wrong with banning a backwards custom that limits women's rights?

Let's stop a backwards custom that is practiced by 30 people with a backwards law that limit's clothing choices for seven Million people.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#230

Post by [deleted] »

zo1 wrote: post #135
nickez wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden we have a company running the ID system and that works fine. The company is coowned by all the large banks afaik. I was really surprised at how far behind Switzerland is compared to Scandinavia when it comes to digitalisation. Being able to handle my life hassle free online instead of going to physical places (like post office, banks, gov office) is liberating. I also get all my bills digitally and all my r…

If you think that's bad, look at the UK. They had a government-ID system with an ID card, and then they scrapped it. Now people run around using driver's licenses and municipal bills (I guess) to open bank accounts and other things. Utterly backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Documents_Act_2010 I've been formulating my thinking around it and I'm starting to think that this is some sort of new-age "luddi…

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