I realized why governments are so fast in approving digital ID cards on smartphones
In my (European) country now we can have a digital copy of the driving license on the phone. It specifically says that it's valid to be presented to law enforcement officers during a check.
I saw amazed in the beginning. They went from limited beta testing to full scale nationwide launch in just two months. Unbelievable. And I even thought "wow this is so convenient I won't need to take the wallet with me anymore". I installed the government app and signed up with my government id and I got my digital driving license.
Then yesterday I got stopped by a random roadblock check and police asked me my id card. I was eager to immediately try the new app and show them the digital version, but then because music was playing via Bluetooth and I didn't want to pause it, i just gave the real one.
They took it and went back to their patrol for a full five minutes while they were doing background checks on me.
That means if I used the digital version, they would had unlimited access to all my digital life. Photos, emails, chats, from decades ago.
What are you are going to do, you expect that they just scan the qr code on the window, but they take the phone from your hand. Are you going to complain raising doubts? Or even say "wait I pin the app with a lock so you can't see the content?"
"I have nothing to hide" but surely when searching for some keywords something is going to pop-up. Maybe you did some ironic statement and now they want to know more about that.
And this is a godsend for the secret services. They no longer need to buy zero day exploits for infecting their targets, they can just cosplay as a patrol and have the victim hand the unlocked phone, for easy malware installation
Immediately uninstalled the government app, went back to traditional documents.
Pretty sure they're not supposed to take your phone. The point of a digital document is that you don't have to hand in anything. Scan the QR code and they can run as many background checks on the data they want. You'll still have your phone.
Not supposed to != wont. Police regularily do things that they arent supposed to and as long as people naively consent by giving their phone they can get away with whatever they want i would think.
Then sue them. You have the right.
In my country you cant Sue, only complain. But you complain to the instance you complain about. Eg police is handling complaints about the police. Besides that. For most people sueing isnt something you just do
Of course you can. You said you live in Europe.
Unless you live in Russia or the Vatican, that means your country has signed the European Convention on Human Rights, of which article 8 commits it to respecting your privacy.
So, sure, you're not going to bother suing. It's not that important to you. But let's go easy on the helplessness of "In my country you can't do that". Yes. You can do it.
Wonder why you are getting downvoted as this is a perfectly legitimate point. Are they just not in Europe or something?
Or who knows, they really could be in the Vativan, stranger things have happened. But I don't know why they would mention those circumstances without qualification that they are special circumstances. Kind of burying the lede there.
Good luck lmao
In Brazil, the officer just uses their own phone to scan a validation QR on the ID app, at no point your phone leaves your hand and in a few seconds the officer has what they need. Shouldn't this be the case in the EU? AFAIK the officers only take your physical ID to check the number, so if you're using the app they shouldn't need to confirm that as the info is already validated
Isn't it impressive that we in Brazil sometimes create the best and most simple solutions to problems, but no one will imitate us and will keep insisting in their problematic systems, because we are the third world and supposedly can't get anything right? It's sad when we end up replacing our own good things, because even we think we're inferior in everything and can't come up with a good solution for anything.
Say what you will about the country, but gov.br and PIX put everything else to shame and no one even came close to something like that
I love SUS too.
I'm sure it doesn't come across the same in Portuguese, but I think naming a government service SUS is pretty funny.
For all that Russia is an imperialist police state, our e-government services are pretty slick too
As op said, the whole point is to get you to hand your phone over unlocked. Thats the point.
But you're not handing your phone over, it stays in your hand and if there's a QR code to scan they'll scan it with the phone in your hand
That's not why the system was created
I believe EU also requires that you give up login credentials if they are biometric in nature. Meaning if you use a fingerprint reader or face unlock you are required to provide that to law enforcement when asked. So either way if they want your phone's contents they can get it.
They need a warrant or probable cause for that, but yes they can compel it unlike a password. It's still a search and needs to be lawfully done in the first place.
Yea but that wasn't the point of me pointing it out. The point was that they don't need to resort to such measures in order to clandestinely acquire your unlocked phone.
I wonder if they are referring to this, or to an EU equivalent of it:
https://idtechwire.com/fifth-amendment-does-not-protect-against-biometric-phone-unlock-says-9th-circuit-appeals-court/
Right, but they can't just do it without reason which he was implying, and he replied to me with
In this case he was on parole where they have the right to search him. That mention of blood draw etc, you're already under arrest and they can search your person anyway.
I'm not aware of any law where a cop can walk up to you on the street and demand they unlock your phone with biometrics and search it without cause.
On re-reading that other guys comments, they just make no sense. You are right to draw your distinction, because this thread is being strangely vague on details and trying to encourage conspiratorial thinking without specifics.
That said, I think the core concern can be rephrased in a way that gets at the essence, and to me there's still a live issue that's not relieved simply by noting that this requires probable cause.
What's necessary to establish probable cause in the United States has been dramatically watered down to the point that it's a real time, discretionary judgment of a police officer, so in that respect it is not particularly reassuring. It can be challenged after the fact in court, but it's nevertheless dramatically watered down as a protection. And secondly, I don't think any of this hinges on probable cause to begin with, because this is about the slow creep normalization of surveillance which involves changes to what's encompassed within probable cause itself. The fact that probable cause now encompasses this new capability to compel biometric login is chilling even when you account for probable cause.
And moreover, I think there's a bigger thematic point here about a slow encroach of surveillance in special cases that eventually become ubiquitous (the manhunt for the midtown shooter revealed that practically anyone in NYC is likely to have their face scanned, and it was a slow-creep process that got to that point), or allow the mixing and matching of capabilities in ways that clearly seem to violate privacy.
Another related point, or perhaps different way of saying the same thing above, is that this should be understood as an escalation due to the precedent setting nature of it, which sets the stage for considering new contexts where, by analogy to this one, compelled biometric login can be regarded as precedented and extensions of the power are considered acceptable. Whatever the next context is where compelled biometric login is considered, it will at that point no longer be a new idea without precedent.
Well ya. The whole thing is really fucked in the first place. It's very disturbing that it was ruled they can compel biometics in any circumstance.
In a far off future, this ruling would probably even allow a mind reading device to figure out a PIN, which would be protected, because they didn't force you to say it, and reading electrical signals isn't really any different than reading ridges on a finger.
Yup, if you hand them your unlocked phone they can look through it.
They don't need to take your phone with them. They literally can just scan the code, because it sends all the info to their screen, that they were gonna look up anyway.
No way the government implemented an app for this use case. That's extremely inefficient.
I thought you actually tried, that they took your phone?
Illinois at least passed a law to limit the consent given when using a digital ID with a police officer such that they’re ONLY allowed to use it for ID and not snooping, but that’s the only state to do so.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/should-i-use-my-states-digital-drivers-license
But do you trust them to follow the law? I certainly don't.
Couldn’t these apps also use the Android/iOS’ wallet manager which allows handing it over unlocked while the phone is “closed” (not necessarily locked, though…)?
I don't know if they could, because they will probably compromise all information into the wallet.
But it's a good idea. I hope that it can be implemented like you said in a secure way.
On iOS you can enable Guided Access and restrict what one can do, for example disable touch and lock it to an app, until you enter a Code. I imagine Android will have something similar.
This obviously doesn’t protect against electronic forensics, but it does protect against just opening different apps and searching through the phone manually.
Yes, Android has app pinning. But they still have access to anything the app gives them.
They can see my ID on the phone. But if they want to take it, then no, I don't have that ID on me. But then, I live in the US where digital ID isn't valid.
It is valid in some states. OP raises an excellent point. I live in the U.S. and have the digital ID on my phone, but I won't be handling it to law enforcement. I'll make sure I have the physical copy when I'm driving.
You can block off certain sections of the screen, or disable touch completely. If all the info they need is on the screen just make it so they can’t tap anything.
Why is nobody mentioning that by installing it and authenticating, there is sweet fuck all you can do to stop them tracking your movements and downloading your whole address book so they can see who you Associate with?
Taking the phone isn't the problem if they are already in it.
You have to explicitly allow that, at least on android. However, most people hit allow and don't think anyways :/
Oh nice, no contacts or internal storage stuff!
There are camera and location permissions listed. AFAIK my ID card doesn't have those.
I think that might just be to scan qr codes. And unless you've got a very shitty phone, that camera can't run without the app being active.
You do close your apps, right?
Yeah, I do.
Gud gud
Camera also means microphone access.
iOS too. Permissions can even be given only while the app is active if it “requires” them, or for location for example an approximate one is sufficient.
Yep, but there was some news about that recently. Apparently their security doesn't quite work as it should. Perhaps that's been fixed by now, but then again, Apple does not have a great reputation there.
In most phones it is possible to set permissions (to contacts, locaton, etc) for every app.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about all the comments discussed here. Mainly because the governments already have access to everything and I mean EVERYTHING. They will get a subpoena in under a minute if they want to check something regarding your digital life. Not condoning it, just a fact of present life.
There's limits, largely around the speed and accuracy by which data can be ingested and processed. You can look for everyone somewhere sometimes and someone everywhere sometimes and someone somewhere at any time, but it takes a ton of digital resources to monitor everyone everywhere all the time. For the data to be meaningful it has to be interpreted.
Manned checkpoints allow local state actors to make decisions in near-real time relative to immediately present information. The classic example is someone with a stale warrant or notice on their record. The sheer volume of delinquents makes pursuing every individual troublesome, but as soon as a known offender steps across a checkpoint the police can pounce on the individual offender in that instance. If you've got a five year old traffic ticket, a police officer can be in your face about it as soon as they run your ID.
fwiw, my state's mobile id app doesn't even ask for the location permission. so maybe some, but it's not universal
Digital licence is all I have used for about 7 years. Police here are careful never to reach for a phone as they can't legally. You display the licence and give it a shake to animate it and they copy the number down in their notebook. If the police ever did illegally take a phone I would wipe it and replace it and lodge a complaint.
They may have similar protections in Europe. People often post opinions on social media without checking facts. I get why on commercial social media where everything is rage bait. But i don't know why people can't take a few minutes to check local laws before posting here.
Probably because I live in America but we don't trust police to not do something just because they're not supposed to. They do it all the time here.
Hi, Your dedicated local Secret Service agent here.
We don't need your smartphone to access your data. We have surveillance equipment for that. That is why we can scan the qr code of your ID app and do the checks we need.
If you want us not to track you, you need a degoogled smartphone and use cash exclusively. Also you could use a vpn while you browse the interwebs, but we ll still be, eventually, able to see where you browse.
BTW we don't stop randomly ppl on roadblocks. You or your car or your route or all of the above was of concern for us.
They aren’t from the USA
Actually you do have them in the us too now. It's just only in nine states so far.
https://learn.wallet.apple/id#states-list
You guys have IDs? I thought that was only for drivers licenses… And no, those two are not from equal categories.
Ummm, yes, we do.
If you are on android you can use screen pinning. That way phone won't get locked and bother the police but they can't switch to any other app without your password.
But I don't know how much I'll trust an app by government. Maybe in Europe that app is Open source.
The EU covid app was released on fdroid. I would trust it if it was open source, audited by a third party, and finally made available on fdroid.
Fortunately fdroid does some checks. And the third party audit does some checks. Thats already a lot of others checking it.
For some reason that's only a thing when navigation is set to buttons, when using gestures it's not available. So yeah it's a bit hard to go to settings, change the navigation mode, turn on pinning, pin the app and only then hand over the phone...
I also have my phone setup to gesture navigation. If I swipe up and click on app icon I see option to pin it.
Must be some OnePlus limitation or something.
I just double checked on my phone, on Android you can pin the current app, that limits access for the user to only that app. Unpinning requires you to essentially unlock the phone again. I wouldn't hand my phone to a pig either, but if I pinned the app, it would be secure enough for a traffic stop.
For people with iPhone you can do this too.
Go to settings and pull down with your finger to get the search box to appear, then search for “Guided” and click “Guided access”.
Enable this setting as well as toggling “Accessibility shortcut”. Now you can open an app and triple click the lock button and select guided access.
Then on this screen you can press start in the top right or options in the bottom left to refine the controls, for instance:
Now the phone is locked in that app and to come out of it requires the passcode.
No problem.
Yeah it’s great for giving your friends your phone if you don’t trust them not to try and fuck with you for jokes. Or if using it for playing music in a group gathering.
Even for children using the device. Particularly as you can set the volume and not give them the permission to change it.
Does this work well for the camera app when I'm filming the police
As others already stated there are solutions already to pin apps and to be honest, I feel I would not give the phone to a policeman like that.
On the other hand, what I'm more concerned about is giving the access to my phone's data through different permissions to my government.
For example this is the list of permissions for the Hungarian government app: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/hu.gov.dap.app/latest/#trackers
Nah, I'll just carry my ID card around.
Not in Australia where it is illegal for the police to touch your phone.
They can compel you to reveal your password
without a warrantbut can't touch your phone? Is that a state law?Dont we have a right to a lawyer and to not self incriminate? Surly they need a court order to compelled u to reveal ur password?
https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca191482/s3la.html
It does require a court order, but notably you do not need to be suspected of a crime.
Not that I'm aware of, but if you find otherwise, let me know!
It requires a magistrate to issue an order at least. But yeah seems we are fucked. Is there any way one could devise a method to which it is literally impossible for you to provide said information if u dont want? Like could u tie unlocking to somthing they cannot legally compell u to do without violating ur human rights?
that's odd. in south africa while we don't have a digital license the physical ones do have a code. they scan the code and that's it. they never take the license unless they asking for a bribe.
Bare minimum, it would take a substantial amount of time and resources to harvest data from every phone of every driver passing through a particular checkpoint. Not that I'd ever recommend handing over my phone to a cop, but this kind of data transfer isn't trivial. And its not clear what a street cop is going to do with 10 GB of accumulated vacation photos.
On the flip side, if you have an Automatic Backup feature on your phone, its going to a cloud computer somewhere. And that cloud computer is almost certainly compromised by the state digital security agency (and probably a number of foreign security agencies). At that point, it doesn't matter if you've got a physical id or a digital one, just knowing who you are is enough to tie you back to that digital archive.
But... again, what is it that front-line state agents are planning to do with all this data? That's never been made particularly clear.
it's more like searching messages for some keywords, then use the result to justify a full car search
Convenience always has a cost
That's cute but as a rule when dealing with the government, physical access is root access
your phone isn't safe from anyone unless it's been restarted since last unlocked, and is reasonably new. they have exploits for after it's been unlocked incl while things are pinned
To add to this, a lot of what keeps us safe is the friction of bureaucracy. Authoritarians cannot micromanage every decision you make or round up every person they want because those actions take time and resources that aren't infinite. But you can reduce the time and resources required if you make identification more convenient and therefore enforcement more targeted. Maybe now they can justify making you present ID every time you pay cash at Starbucks, buy a backpack, get on a bus, use a bike share, watch hot snuff porn, you name it.
Every country in Europe that has vastly better privacy laws than the US, also already has national ID since forever.
Now they even became electronic biometric IDs, and I still don't need to show it whenever I buy a loaf of bread.
Even if, why would anyone ever want to bother when they could just track your payment cards?
There's a good chance they have a Cellebrite in their car and will copy your entire phone's storage over.
And you'll get a tinfoil hat as a reward
Yeah because the police using a commercially available and ridiculously cheap device to copy data from your phone is totally unbelievable. I must be the crazy one.
News flash, they're not FBI tier ultra classified tools anymore, you can find them on eBay for less than $1000. There's a good chance that's cheaper than the phone you have right now. You think a police department who is already intent on scrolling through your phone while "checking your ID" wouldn't just put one in every cruiser?
You think a government can ask a couple of dozen thousand, barely literate goons to do something like this without the word getting out within a week?
Yes, and phones have up to 1000gb of storage nowadays. It'll take a minute :p
Forensic acquisition tools like Cellebrite take hours to clone storage. Not saying they wouldn't do it, just saying that legitimate acquisition that can be used against you has to be collected in a very certain way for it to be proof.
We have that app and I never give my phone to anyone. Nobody asks me for it, not even the cops. They just note the details and take it with them.
Oh, and the cops don’t care about your photos or messages when all you’ve done was exceed speed limit by 10km/h.
In normal countries
Police in the US have admitted that traffic stops are just a way to search people and find bigger charges. Cops like that are absolutely nosing around your phone.
Lets not bring that capitalist dystopia to a discussion about functional countries.
Germany in the meantime: „leftist extremism is threatening the democratic system“ [quote from the constitution protection agency] while fascist crimes outnumber them 5 to 1. All that while the EU keeps trying to sneak chatcontrol by us through the backdoor, again and again.
I dont have that much hope for our world tbh.
TBF, Germany has been one of the countries often opposing Chatcontrol, so there's at least that.
Do you have a link for the 5:1 fash vs commie crimes? Not doubting, just want to read more.
Check the site https://verfassungsschutz.de
There you have sections leftist and fascist extremism and numbers to go along. Leftist crimes are around 4k, fascist around 23k iirc in the recent past (2023)
In the US they need probable cause. Just leave your window rolled up and give them the finger when they knock. They'll puff and shout, but eventually they'll let you through. Be sure to film it and make it clear you're filming
They really won't though. I'm going to believe the body cam footage of them breaking windows and hauling people out of cars over edited YouTube footage.
Either have a cheap second hand sim less phone just for that or carry the physical Id or perhaps a copy of the physical id.
I have the digital id in case i forget my physical one (despite not legaly being required to carry id) but its in an empty graphene os profile.
Meanwhile, there's me who just likes paper versions of this stuff because I like to be able to order a backup hard copy just in case something happens to the first one.
Edit: I'm a fucking dumbass. I was 100% aware they were talking about driver's licenses, yet I was only referring to other vital documents like one's birth certificate, and yet I didn't make the connection in my brain. Apologies. :/
Wait, what? There are countries that let you have multiple valid copies of the same ID??
Sorry, my bad. I meant more stuff like the birth certificate and other vital documents. I really should've specified.
(I swear I'm not a dumbass sometimes.)
That stuff becomes a moot point once you have a decently working bureaucratic system (if and when). If you can ask for a digital certificate online, and get it in your email three days later, you're not too worried about losing a copy.
On the other hand... I swear to you that multiple times, I have had to present "a birth certificate that was less than 6 months old".
As if the time and circumstances of my birth might have suddenly changed in the last year.
Yeaaaaah, I see where you're coming from, but no, I'm just gonna stick with a paper copy that I know is reliable instead of a theoretical bureaucratic system that could possibly be reliable if it were to exist but in no way does exist (at least in the US).
This is the government after all. I'd like to have a paper copy in case they fuck something up during a system update and "can't find me in the system". (This is not very likely, I admit, but I wouldn't put it past them some days...)
Edit: Also, what if I don't have three days and I need said document(s) as soon as possible? That's where a hard copy comes in.
You can pin the app (android) or have it in guided access mode (ios). Although, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an exploit to get out and access memory it shouldn't. Maybe if you install the govt spyware app in a different user profile (Android) then it will be restricted to that certain memory.
That's a limitation in your countries implementation then. The owner must have full control of what data to present or at least category based requests.
Containerized apps on Android when?
There's already a containerized Personal / Work split in the OS. You'd think the partitions could be made smaller.
But then Google is as deep into the NatSec industry as any other tech company. Even if you have containerization, there's little reason to believe Five Eyes doesn't have a back door.
This is the biggest issue I have with them. The only way this will work in modern society where the police can't be trusted, is if the ID is accessible while the rest of the device is locked down.
And that's really only possible if Apple and Google integrate that directly into the OS.
It is.
Apple has "guided access", android has "pin app".
I only have experience with the latter, it works by opening the task management view, and selecting "pin application" on a running app.
That then locks the device to that app. To access anything else, it has to be unlocked as if the screen were locked.
App Pinning DOES NOT lockdown the device, even if you have it set to require a PIN to unpin, biometrics still work to unlock the device.
It also gives you a warning that personal data may still be accessible and the pinned app can open other apps. It specifically says "Only use app pinning with people you trust"... which is the exact opposite of the use case here. And app pinning is turned off by default, you have go go searching in the settings to enable the ability.
Was definitely on by default on my device.
Personal data is still accessible, if the app you choose to pin is something like the dialer, or your mail app, then yes, you can obviously access contacts and emails. The feature doesn't block the pinned app from accessing everything it normally accesses.
As for opening other apps, this applies to stuff like links or launchers. If the app has links somewhere, you could open your default browser app. It does not allow you to "escape" the pinned app to anywhere else in the system, unless the pinned app has a way to launch other apps the way launchers do.
The feature could certainly use improvement, but if it were only useful with people you trust, it would be pointless.
It's obviously intended for situations where you have to let someone use your phone, and don't want to give them free reign. With people you trust, you wouldn't need something like that.
It's far better than nothing, and is in fact part of android.
The whole point of these apps is that the device won't leave your hands. Officers will scan a QR code or some other validation method while your device is in your hands. If they're taking your phone to check the info someplace else, you're either lying or there's something bigger going on and you're not telling us
I've always just shown a scan of my ID on my phone. It's just a picture?
and they accept that as a valid id? I mean in a store ok, but a public official? It's incredibly easy to make a fake screenshot
the digital version of id cards are glorified qr codes: they scan it and their device downloads from the government servers the official version. Or, for offline usage: the qr code contains all the data, signed with their key, they check if the signature is valid
Yeah, I think they have some sort of input for the ID. Number if they want that's visible on the photo
For the most surface level concerns like risking them accessing any app on your phone, you can enable app lock on those that support it. Usually the most sensitive do: WhatsApp, Signal, banking apps and others.
If they don't, take advantage of the private space which locks apps until you unlock, and you can relock whenever you want
If you use an android phone, just create a separate account on your phone just with the apps you want the police to see. No email, photos, social media, or anything. This way you can switch to the restricted user before giving the cop your phone.
What's the possibility and legality of something like getting implemented in the US?
drivers licensees are by state and my only federal id is my ss card which doesnt have my picture or any current information. i dont think it would work as well here since you would need 50 different apps
Google wallet has begun implementing state IDs depending on the state.
Yeah, as a rule you should always turn off your phone before approaching any control point like that
I'm thinking of going stoic and dropping anything Android, but this would require setting up an emulator working good enough for WhatsApp, Google Authenticator, MS Authenticator and probably something else.
But they have one advantage: They are way easier to counterfeit. Meaning that with a few months of programming at most, if you ever find yourself on a run, you'll be able to ID yourself on trains or buses or check in to hotels with fake personal info.
you realize they're more than just your picture on a screen, right? there's a whole public key private key verification process that happens, which covers your photo and personal info, at least from what I understand of ISO 18013-5.
if anything it should be almost impossible to make a fake mobile id, barring exploits in reader software or the govt leaking their private key.
Yes I do. Therefore I would never use it in front of state authorities, but I doubt a hotel receptionist would make use of a pubkey cryptography.
you don't think they'll just use some app to verify it? my state's mdl doesn't even show any personal info other than name, if they want birthday they have to scan it
If you're just flashing an ID like a badge, maybe not. But as soon as the hotel tries to use the information to do anything (even as trivial as adding it to their local systems) there's a good chance it'll get bounced or hung up. A fake digital id is worse than none at all. Its a big red flag saying "Look harder at this person, they're suspicious!"
i don't think that there's no check at all. There's either a server side check or a digital signature to verify, or both. You can trick the train ticket check (here they don't even scan the qr code, they see the screen on the phone and continue) or the lazy airbnb landlord, but that can be done also today
Don't get me wrong, it's great that you figured this out. But why did you not consider this sooner? Wouldn't it have been obvious that you would have to have the phone unlocked and that having a police person have any access to an unlocked device would be a real problem?
What's obvious to you may not be obvious to other people?
Likewise, what's obvious to you at one moment may not be obvious to you at another, simply because you're thinking about the situation from a different angle.
No, se facessero cosi basterebbe che tu toccassi il bottone di blocco mentre glielo passi... A ripetere fino alla nausea.
No credo che la realtà sia differente: cosi ti invogliano ad avere l'app IO installata sul telefono... Semmai è quello il cavallo di troia.
NSA has all your info already anyway