[flagged]
uhm, what?
Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
31–40 of 423 posts
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because person hours are expensive (because food is expensive because person hours are expensive because socialized health care is expensive). Every process that currently involves reams of paperwork (like the ~20 page tax declaration that is due this month - yikes) that can be done digitally instead saves the taxpayer or customer money. And the Swiss do like their money.
Taxes? You fill in the form in on your computer and can file it digitally. And if you print it it‘s encoded in a format similar to QR codes. Tax offices are fully digital since at least 10 years. If you file with paper it‘s scanned and destroyed. Your local tax office receives all the documents digitally. Of course this could vary by canton.
> Of course this could vary by canton.
It does. Zurich still sends me a thick envelope with the 20 pages and tells me to throw away 90% of it if I do my taxes digitally.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#33Switzerland has this in its constitution: Article 13: Right to Privacy 1. All persons have the right to receive respect for their private and family life, home, and secrecy of the mails and telecommunications. 2. All persons have the right to be protected against the abuse of personal data. Also the constitution can be only changed by voting.
> All persons have the right to receive respect for their private and family life, home, and secrecy of the mails and telecommunications.
I really wish the US had this. Here, even simple acts like registering to vote or getting a driver license, bank account, credit card means your personal residence gets leaked to spammers, scammers, data brokers, and eventually, stalkers.
There really should be laws saying that personal addresses cannot be given to third parties without explicit, optional, opt-in consent.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#34[flagged]
Not sure if it is helpful to reduce every issue to a one-dimensional scale of capitalism/socialism. Particularly this specific issue is about privacy culture, corruptability of big tech, government and use of technologies, surveillance, etc... There are so many more societal and just plain epistemological axis than just socialism/capitalism.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#35[flagged]
In what way is this a vote for socialism?
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#36“It is key for Switzerland to catch up with other countries when it comes digitalisation“ Why?
Imagine if you had to print a paper form and mail or deliver it to the local Government for even the simplest of administrative tasks.
Because that is life in Switzerland.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#37Quite a few people who voted against this did so purely because they didn’t want private companies controlling the system. If the proposal had been for the government to issue and control the identities, it may well have passed.
It does not seem like such a terrible idea if it is government run to me. But it depends on having trust in the checks and balances implemented in your system of governance.
It's fine if a majority of the people can overrule a political policy by a referendum. It's not fine if the government was like the US or China.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#38“It is key for Switzerland to catch up with other countries when it comes digitalisation“ Why?
The latest European standard for IDs is a credit-card sized of plastic with a chip in it.
It should allow more security, because digital signature is harder to forge than previous physical securities. But also you could use them more easily in other countries, as it can be read by a computer, and not a human that speaks a finite set of languages.
Lastly, you could use them for authentication for various online and daily services, such as banking, taxes, creation of companies, digital signature,... that are said to save time on logistics.
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#39Meanwhile in Germany: "Hey, wouldn't it be so swell if people needed to provide their ID when signing up for email accounts and instant messengers?"
Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies
#40“It is key for Switzerland to catch up with other countries when it comes digitalisation“ Why?
Because person hours are expensive (because food is expensive because person hours are expensive because socialized health care is expensive). Every process that currently involves reams of paperwork (like the ~20 page tax declaration that is due this month - yikes) that can be done digitally instead saves the taxpayer or customer money. And the Swiss do like their money.
> socialized health care is expensive
Socialized health care? There's no such thing in Switzerland.
Sure, health insurance is mandatory. No question that it's heavily regulated (i.e. basic insurance can't rule you out or discriminate against you for pre-existing conditions).
But socialized health care? Give me a break.
> like the ~20 page tax declaration that is due this month
The actual declaration is covered by 4 basic pages. In addition there's a declaration of assets and a couple of helper pages for deductions.
You can download tax declaration software for free (at least in the canton of Zürich) and using it for your declaration takes all of 20 minutes.
It may be a bit more complex if you own real estate, or if some other complexities are involved.
You either don't have a clue or you're massively over-exaggerating for reasons, which elude me.