German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function

https://bmi.usercontent.opencode.de/eudi-wallet/wallet-development-documentation-public/latest/architecture-concept/06-mobile-devices/02-mdvm/

by DyslexicAtheist • 4 months ago

575 620 4 months ago

bmi.usercontent.opencode.de

NooneAtAll3• 4 months ago

what's eIDAS?

ezfe• 4 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EIDAS

electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services

whizzter4• 4 months ago

EU digital identity law to make inter-EU signatures (And authentication) work.

As an example, an EU citizen working in Sweden should be able to submit Swedish tax forms whilst living here by using a digital identity from the originating nation.

There are also some standards in place like ETSI standardized extensions to PDF signatures so that you can verify that a signature inside the PDF was actually signed by a specific physical person (the standard is there but it's not fully used throughout the EU yet due to some legacies).

Implementation is a bit of a mess still but things are converging.

stefan_2• 4 months ago

The gold standard for digital signatures today is

- someone sends you a docusign link

- you sign up with your email

- you sign with your name in a cutesy font

Theres a dispute? Well it was going to end up in court no matter how you signed it anyway. This has all the hallmarks of a design by committee project by people whose salary is paid regardless of demonstrating market fit, productivity, usage, plain sensibleness...

mzajc• 4 months ago

Is there a reason this user-hostile mess is preferred over an X.509 certificate (besides big tech lobbying)?

Slovenia hands out certificates for online government services, including document signing, and it seems to be going fine, with the added benefit that Google can't take away my access.

lucb1e4• 4 months ago

inter-EU signatures

I assume this should be "intra-EU"? I'm not very familiar with eidas so I'm not sure, but afaik it's about signatures within the EU, not between different EUs (as there is only one in this world). (I hate this inter/intra wording, always have to translate it in my head to understand whether it's like internet (between networks) or like intranet (within a network). Would recommend using "within-" instead of intra whenever it's not already a well-established word, like intranet)

ResearchAtPlay• 4 months ago

Do you happen to know if German citizens can obtain a certificate to sign PDFs (from the government / for free)?

Several paid providers for X.509 certificates exist but document signing certificates cost around 80 € per year [0]. And if I want duplicate X.509 certificates for my redundant Yubikeys then the cost doubles.

Other providers require an initial deposit and then charge per signature [1], which leads to intransparent pricing. In the interest of open commerce, I strongly believe that securely signing an electronic document should cost the same as my manual signature, i.e. nothing.

A partial solution already exists because I can use my electronic ID card with the AusweisApp to prove my identity when interacting with German authorities. This feature is generally useful because I live outside of the EU, but I especially appreciate that I can have my OpenPGP key signed by Governikus (a government provider) to prove the key belongs to my name [2].

Technically, I should be able to use my certified PGP key to sign documents, but in practice most non techies don't know how to validate my signature. For the average user opening my signed PDF in Adobe Reader, I would need an X.509 certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority for users to see the green check mark.

[0] https://shop.certum.eu/documentsigning-certifcates.html

[1] https://www.entrust.com/products/electronic-digital-signing

[2] https://pgp.governikus.de/wizard/requirements

nickslaughter022• 4 months ago

A mistake.

stefan_2• 4 months ago

So what was the point of putting a crypto chip into every ID if you are gonna try and reinvent the entire trusted environment in the fucking smartphone?

mr_toad• 4 months ago

ID cards don’t connect to the internet.

These days an ID system that doesn’t work online is next to useless.

haagch7• 4 months ago

It's an NFC card that can be read with any NFC card reader, USB or smartphone based.

https://www.ausweisapp.bund.de/en/open-source I just saw that it's available in alpine.

So I tried installing it on my postmarketOS smartphone and it runs out of the box: https://i.imgur.com/nRIAyrq.png

My Shift6mq is listed has not having NFC support in postmarketOS, so I can't actually test it, but I assume the USB card reader option will work once it's supported.

jml7c5• 4 months ago

Is the link broken for anyone else? I'm getting ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED.

lucb1e4• 4 months ago

Works for me in Germany. I wonder if it's some overzealous bot protection that's cutting off humans again, in this case from what looks like a government website, but without further testing that's hard to say. You could check if it works from another network, or if other people on your network range have the same issue (like if you're in 13.37.0.0/16 then maybe someone else at the ISP is also in that range and could check if it got blocked outright)

lta• 4 months ago

That sounds like a very smart move at the time where Europe realize the US isn't such a gray partner and it's trying to reduce it's critical dependencies on foreign nations tech and infra. Good job. I'm actually very surprised to see this from the germans who have this reputation of great engineering culture

iknowstuff• 4 months ago

Not in software. German software is awful. Think german cars, banks, telecoms etc

fmajid• 4 months ago

Ah yes, the fabulous car engineering of Dieselgate.

newsicanuse• 4 months ago

While I agree, it'd be hard to say that SAP is not good

MrDresden• 4 months ago

Nor in the physical world either. Crumbling planes, trains and automobile infrastructure. Collapsed bridges, airports that don't function properly etc.

randomNumber7• 4 months ago

from the germans who have this reputation of great engineering culture

This was more than 30 years ago. Now we have a great culture of overregulation.

CalRobert2• 4 months ago

I think the reputation is fading. I know I’d take a Chinese car over a German one.

Tade0• 4 months ago

I wouldn't, as China being the largest single market for motor vehicles and the cutthroat competition there is what caused all this.

Everyone is trying to cut costs so as to be able to compete there and Europeans are paying the cost of financing this.

Personally I'm going to wait until the average car age in China crosses the 10-year mark to get a new vehicle. Until that happens there will be no incentive to think about longevity.

livvy2• 4 months ago

Can anyone point me to where in the MDVN page it mentions requiring Apple and Google account? Thanks

weikju• 4 months ago

Because the attestations will only work on iOS and Google Play integrity attested devices. Meaning Apple and Google accounts required.

livvy2• 4 months ago

This is an assumption, but not confirmed.

blitzar• 4 months ago

A phone is also required then?

raphman• 4 months ago

Mastodon thread on this topic: https://mastodon.social/@pojntfx/116345677794218793

See also this issue from 2025 where the developers responded: https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

AFAICT, there is no mention of an Apple or Google account being required in general - the documentation just lists "signals" that are used to securely authenticate a person - such as Google's/Apple's security ecosystems. I am not sure what this means in practice. Can anybody with deeper understanding explain the actual implications and possible outcomes?

(Note: BMI is the German Federal Ministry for the Interior)

pojntfx• 4 months ago

Hey, Fel from the fedi thread here

Explanation: https://mastodon.social/@pojntfx/116345725515845020

There is in practice no known way around it for now, and even less so one for regular people, to use this on a device without a Google account

zb32• 4 months ago

threats:
unknown system image (e.g. custom ROM)

Oh no, what a horrible crime, somebody dared to modify operating system on their own device..

AppAttestationz6• 4 months ago

The title is misleading.

App attestation does not require an Apple account nor a google account. For Android, it does limit the ROMs to Google certified ones and requires GMS to be installed if Play Integrity is used. An alternative option, would be to use the Hardware Attestation API directly, GrapheneOS would be thanking you.

I've spent a good amount of time implementing exactly this type of system for a backup service.

his document specifies a way to cryptographically attest the integrity of a HTTP request hitting a server.

The attestation proves the request came from a device and attest the legitimacy of the bootloader, OS and app.

Google and Apple are in a privileged position to be able to bypass the app attestation though, so depending on the threat model, it's not bulletproof.

edit: Play Integrity could the worst offender here, as it can be leveraged to force a user to have installed the app through the Play Store. Indirectly, requiring a Google account.

bossyTeacher2• 4 months ago

App attestation does not require an Apple account nor a google account. For Android, it does limit the ROMs to Google certified ones and requires GMS to be installed.

To me, there is no difference between your sentences. You require the blessing of an American company to be able use eIDAS. Google has the power to disable eIDAS at a national scale by making the attestation services treat all devices as not certified.

There should be NO reliance whatsoever on a private company not under the control (direct or indirect) of the government let alone a foreign private company.

Edit: I just noticed your username and the fact that your account is very new. Are you astroturfing?

AppAttestationz6• 4 months ago

I agree, there is still a reliance on the tech giants that produce the phones, who are the o'es embedding the cryptographic keys, to make this end to end attestation work.

But in pure technical & UX terms, you don't need to be logged in.

AppAttestationz6• 4 months ago

I made an account because I'm qualified to talk about this topic :-) I've spent a considerable time testing every corner case of UX, and DX of an app attested service.

App attestation can fail on simulators, Graphene OS, dev builds, I've seen it all. There is one check you can do to see if an app was side loaded, so indirectly, can require Google account.

Title is still misleading though, as it explicitly mentions accounts.

seba_dos118• 4 months ago

There's no such thing as "legitimacy of the bootloader, OS" that can be verified by someone who isn't the device's user. The bootloader that booted the phone I type this on is patched by me, which makes it more "legitimate" than any other bootloader that could be placed there.

AppAttestationz6• 4 months ago

You can bicker about the words all day long. Legitimacy, or perhaps better: authenticity, in this context, would be a bootloader or OS that doesn't allow tampering with the execution of an app.

izacus7• 4 months ago

Sorry but this is nonsense - most users, even the Linux toting power users - don't have the time, ability or knowledge to verify the contents of their OS in a way that would catch issues prevented by attestation.

The problem with modified phones containing malware is very real and unless you want a full on Apple "you're not allowed to touch the OS" model you need some kind of audited OS verification that you as a user or a security sensitive software can depend on.

goblin897• 4 months ago

The reason (or, depending on your inclinations, the excuse) for trusted computing to exist is not to guarantee that I didn’t patch the bootloader of the phone on which I type my comment; it’s to guarantee I didn’t patch the bootloader of the phone on which your grandma logs in to her bank without her knowledge.

AlBugdy3• 4 months ago

All these requirements for specific hardware and software are ridiculous. Let every citizen use whatever computer they want. It should be up to the user to secure themselves. Authentication should only require a password or a key pair. If the user wants more security, they can set up TOTP or buy a security dongle or something.

It's also ridiculous how it seems we've forgotten computers other than smartphones exist and that not everyone even has a smartphone, let alone with an Apple or Google account.

direwolf203• 4 months ago

let every citizen use whatever computer they want.

That's just not possible, or should the system be legally required to run on an Apple II?

seba_dos118• 4 months ago

It should be legally required to provide enough interoperation capabilities for a compatible frontend to be written for an Apple II by whoever would like to do that, as the government can't be expected to write and maintain clients for every platform that's now in existence or that will be created in future.

If only currently popular platforms are to be supported, how could a new platform join them in the future if the use of existing ones is mandated by governments?

cocoto• 4 months ago

Simple, provide a simple API, let the community build the clients for the machines they have.

jmorenoamor• 4 months ago

No, but it should be open enough to be reasonably independent of specific services and devices.

7bit2• 4 months ago

You can make an argument without pulling it into the ridiculous, you know?

realo• 4 months ago

The problem to solve is trust.

The technical solution is a hardware root of trust. This is typically a specially hardened chip in the device. A Trusted Platform Module (TPM).

Your Apple ][ does not have a TPM. It cannot run software that can assess it's identity in a trusted manner.

atanasi• 4 months ago

The current policy trend in the EU is definitely not based on the principle of each user evaluating their own risk. On the contrary, service providers like financial institutes and identity providers have the responsibility to keep users safe, and more and more regulation will be made. The natural consequence is restricting which platforms are supported.

sunshine-o4• 4 months ago

The current policy trend in the EU is definitely not based on the principle of each user evaluating their own risk.

Yes and if you look back this is not new. Just look at the extraordinary restrictions that apply to:

- What houses you can build,

- What vehicle you can drive,

- What food you can grow and sell.

The result is real estate has become unaffordable for younger people, our car industry is being annihilated, and the agriculture sector hold by a string.

The digital realm enjoyed an unusual level freedom until now because the silent and boomer generations in charge in the EU understood nothing about it.

Now that the EU is getting involved in "computers" we are starting to understand why peasants have been protesting in Brussels and calling those people insane for decades.

rolandog• 4 months ago

"Legislation will continue until morale improves."

The regulations sometimes feel like additional burden of the user, but not for the manufacturers (aside for the attestation logic); consider:

(MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY requires a security patch in the last 12 months)

Think about how this essentially codifies planned obsolescence due to not forcing the manufacturers to maintain the devices for life.

mrweasel• 4 months ago

Last week I was watching a YouTube video, talking about the EU creating payment services independent of VISA and MasterCard. What struck me is that they are all apps, which will require an app store.

Great, I can pay with a digital Euro, Wero or something else, without routing my payments via VISA. I just can't do it without an account with Apple or Google. I'm absolutely baffled by politicians, regulators, banks, merchants and implementors lack of ability to think more than one or two steps out.

Sure, the EU is forcing 3rd. party app store, but no one is using them, so no one is pushing apps to them, especially not governments, banks or payment services, they'll be the last to use them.

haagch7• 4 months ago

The digital Euro seems still in early planning stages. It seems people want to plan a physical card for it, but whether online payments will work without a platform dependent app is unclear for now.

Wero however is currently only planned as an android/ios app period. There are rumors that a card will come but that's only rumors for now.

In your list of groups to be baffled about I would add journalists. You see many articles about Wero mentioning digital sovereignty, but have you seen any that criticize the required banking apps only being available in google's and apple's app stores?

cebert• 4 months ago

I am shocked that there isn’t more opposition from the general public to policies like this that erode privacy and freedom. I am a parent and can appreciate the need to control what children do on the internet, but at some point parents need to parent. I fear we’re giving up a lot of freedom and adding unneeded complexity under the guise of keeping children safe.

Ardon• 4 months ago

As far as I can tell, people are getting blitzed. People I know are incredibly deep in their personalized bubble and genuinely aren't even hearing about it. It's genuinely distressing. In general and for the future of democracy.

whilenot-dev2• 4 months ago

It feels like this era of hyper-individualism requires too much attention from each individual and favors those that can afford to outsource the work. While that stabilizes the role of society as a system, I feel like this is most worrisome for the less privileged in any low-trust environment.

gmerc3• 4 months ago

Germany is distracted with its version of “the gun debate” aka speed limits.

Like every school shooting, every energy crisis brings opportunity to saturate the airwaves with shallow noise that gets people overly upset and they’ll ignore everything else.

Every player on both sides is abusing this mechanic for all eternity.

AnthonyMouse13• 4 months ago

every energy crisis brings opportunity to saturate the airwaves with shallow noise that gets people overly upset and they’ll ignore everything else.

At least their version has an obvious solution: Make electric cars and solar panels and then stop having oil problems.

whilenot-dev2• 4 months ago

I think this view is too reductionist, as people can (and usually do) debate more than one topic at a time. The problem is that technological dependence isn't gaining enough precaution when commodity products are being discussed.

What worries me is that it's a real global problem in all of our non-autocratic societies. On a positive note, I can see how this is actually becoming a common understanding and gaining traction, as hyped AI products are seen by some as 3rd-party- or SaaS-killers. It seems like we know how to differentiate between independence and dependence, and evaluate any risks affiliated with such a decision. But it baffles me that this differentiation manages to float as some ironic stream in our Zeitgeist, and just barely manages to be taken seriously.

bluecalm3• 4 months ago

Imagine we had real democracy where people vote on issues. Speed limits? Vote once every 7 years or so on it and be done with it. Same for abortion laws, drug laws, gambling laws. Have a debate, vote, come back to it in 7 years if there is public interest. Preferably vote locally on issues that can be applied locally (like speed limits/enforcement etc.).

Public debate and assessing politicians and parties would be so much cleaner then if they couldn't use polarizing issues to rally their support and do w/e they please on all other issues.

looperhacks• 4 months ago

Nobody is seriously discussing speed limits right now ...

watwut• 4 months ago

at some point parents need to parent

You write it as if companies provided tons of help to parents and children. Meanwhile, they spend a lot of money to make it as hard as possible.

Second, kids in Germany have generally a lot more freedom and there is less of knee jerk impulse to blame parents for every accident. Expectation is that adults dont harm them without parents having perfect control every sevond.

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

The age verification sniffing laws will come to the EU and Germany too, so your assessment is, in my opinion, too limited and incomplete. It's not really about parenting, it is about grabbing more and more data from people.

baxtr2• 4 months ago

I think because most people, even tech savvy ones don’t understand how this might effect their lives. It’s too abstract. At least how it’s portrayed here.

Contrast that with chat control.

My government can read my WhatsApp messages? Not good!

What’s the non-technical narrative here?

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

But there is nothing abstract here. A private entity, situated in a country that is very hostile and pro-Russia, controls parts of the software stack and implementation here. That's a law written by lobbyists.

hhh• 4 months ago

Well, it affects a tiny percentage of people today, so why would they see it as impacting them?

TeMPOraL3• 4 months ago

Write too many color emojis in a row on a YouTube livestream chat
Get banned from society for life

applfanboysbgon7• 4 months ago

The non-technical narrative is very simple: Google, Apple, or the German government can revoke your ID at any time. You cannot purchase or sell anything[1], sign any contracts, have a job, rent an apartment, use public transportation, or receive any kind of government services without an ID. This should sound extremely alarming to everyone regardless of technical knowledge.

[1] Maybe with cash, for now, but cash is clearly not long for this world, and your bank account will be inaccessible already.

testing223214• 4 months ago

What percentage of people have a phone that is not apple or google?

isolatedsystem• 4 months ago

I think the point is rather what percentage of people will continue to need to have a phone that is Apple or Google, due to death by a million decisions like these.

indrora• 4 months ago

My uncle has lost 4 Google accounts. Two to password loss, one to a fire, one to being banned for crimes against currency (having the audacity to live in several countries with different currencies)

The issue isn't the phone, it's that a __government__ is depending on an unregulated private enterprise.

Aachen5• 4 months ago

Are you saying there's a threshold percentage somewhere below which you're happy to

A: exclude these people from society or force them to switch to big tech, and

B: accept the consequence where a single other country holds access to everyone's identity information for convenience reasons (because it works for the 99% that are too tech-illiterate to install software that they control instead of the other way around)

sunshine-o4• 4 months ago

This is because the EU is basically designed as a lobbying platform. Note that lobbying by its own citizen is possible and welcome but expensive and require a some coordination, so basically foreign actors and big corporations are dominating. This is not a secret, the process is actually very transparent but it is "hidden" in all the documents nobody really want to dig into.

Also the EU and all those states are also highly incompetent and pretty much only depends on low quality contractors. For example there is very little discussion and info about the fact that the EU digital infrastructure just got owned by what seems to be a random hacker group [0].

- [0] https://cyberalert.com.pl/articles/shinyhunters-eu-europa-br...

7bit2• 4 months ago

Because it requires tech iCal knowledge which 99% of the population don't have.

phatfish• 4 months ago

I'm not. Parents are very much in favour of restrictions on what can be accessed online.

Parents can't control what their children are doing 24/7, and neither should they. But they should expect a society where children are protected from billion dollar corporations stealing their attention and radicalising them, at least until they are old enough to leave mandatory schooling.

There are many "real world" age restrictions that exist, and we have decided those are of benefit to society in general. The "online world" is no different.

If we can't have age restrictions online then they should just be abolished in the real world as well, in the name of preserving "privacy and freedom". The online world doesn't exist in isolation like it did in the 90s and 00s.

illiac7866• 4 months ago

Isn’t eIDAS about voluntarily authenticating rather than being controlled/monitored? Or am I mixing up?

chmod7753• 4 months ago

They're taking feedback here: https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

lucb1e4• 4 months ago

Source?

You're linking to a bugtracker. I doubt they're inviting people to spam it with duplicate entries — valid as I think the concern is. But maybe it says somewhere that you can leave feedback here and I just haven't seen it?

chmod7753• 4 months ago

They are taking feedback there and also have already responded to some of it.

From their README:

We are interested to receive feedback on all aspects described in the document. To provide feedback, please file an Issue on OpenCoDE.

https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

dolmen• 4 months ago

There is a 8 months old open ticket, with an official answer, here: https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/eudi-wallet/wallet-developmen...

0x_rs• 4 months ago

Does this mean sanctioned individuals, such as those in the International Criminal Court, would be unable to access eIDAS, among other things? As it requires, from my understanding, installing app(s) from the play store, thus requiring an account there and being able to access it, which isn't happening if you're among those or really, in any group that might get the same treatment in the future.

iamnothere2• 4 months ago

If an account is required, then yes. Good catch.

This may not be unwelcome for authorities considering the recent extrajudicial “unpersoning” of many political enemies in the EU.

comex• 4 months ago

It definitely would be unwelcome for EU authorities in cases like the recent US sanctions against ICC officials.

raverbashing3• 4 months ago

Yes?

I don't think it's a bad idea though. If only for bringing the issue to the public

And while I do think an alternative would be good, the fact is that protecting the private key is the most important part (for example by keeping it on a smartcard with NFD) - hence why the need for a secure device

"but I want to install alternative Android etc etc" yes that's fine - but you know this is a non-secure-(enough) env.

AnthonyMouse13• 4 months ago

"but I want to install alternative Android etc etc" yes that's fine - but you know this is a non-secure-(enough) env.

I feel like this is getting to the point of gaslighting. Many of the allowed devices are bargain bin Android phones running out of date software with known vulnerabilities in both the operating system and the hardware which is supposed to be protecting the keys.

Meanwhile you could be using a hardware security module in a bank vault in a nuclear bunker surrounded by armed guards and the excuse would be that this "isn't secure" because it hasn't been approved by Google or Apple.

Governments shouldn't be requiring you to use any specific vendor or set of vendors. They should be publishing standards so that anyone who implements the standard can interact with the system.

fpoling• 4 months ago

Physical SIM cards are just as secure as the security enclave on the phone. In Norway few years ago banks even used that for secure authentication that worked on dumb phones with local mobile network providers pre-installing the required software on their SIM cards.

But then to save cost including the support cost banks stopped and instead started to require a non-rooted Android/iPhone.

Dylan16807• 4 months ago

but you know this is a non-secure-(enough) env.

No I do not. It is plenty secure compared to a corporate version and nobody should be legally able to deny service over me having control over my own computer.

Needing the entire OS to be secure to protect a key is also a dumb idea in general.

rkagerer• 4 months ago

That headline doesn't match the article at all. Can someone elaborate/confirm this really is the case?

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

So much for Europe to decouple from orange-man country ...

It is so clear how lobbyists operate here. I'd call it undermining national sovereignty.

chvid• 4 months ago

The Danish MitId also only runs on Google and Apple devices. No alternative phone platforms are supported including open source Android.

If you don’t have an iPhone or an android, you can get a physical one time password device.

tomjen3• 4 months ago

You can get that anyway, and you should because 2 is 1 and 1 is none.

spragl2• 4 months ago

You can get that, even if you have a phone with the app on it. MitID is perfectly okay with that. At login time you will be prompted for your token code, but there is an option to switch to the app ("Skift til MitID app" in the bottom of the box).

The MitID design is strange, but in this regard it is well done.

TobTobXX2• 4 months ago

Same in Switzerland. The app needed to sign in to fill out my taxes doesn't work on ungoogled Android.

afandian• 4 months ago

Can you do your taxes on a computer without a phone?

herbst4• 4 months ago

Yes. Without any issues still.

Gladly.

There was a time window 2 years ago where it appeared that I need an actual phone number to do my taxes, but even that was replaced with something more universal.

TobTobXX2• 4 months ago

Somewhat. To fill out my taxes online, I could sign up with either the AGOV app (needs Google Android) or a USB security key. I happened to have a yubikey, but I needed to mess with the firefox about:config (security.webauth.u2f=true IIRC). It did work in the end though.

nixass• 4 months ago

So much about digital sovereignty

jakoblorz3• 4 months ago

What if you „lose“ your google / apple account, like this sanctioned judge of the international criminal court? Crazy to imagine that we are still baking in dependency on US providers in european societies, even though there is clear indications we should be doing the opposite?

Animats2• 4 months ago

Then you can't take a Waymo any more.

Animats2• 4 months ago

Amusingly, the points on this posting have been going up and down quite a bit. Range is -1 to 2 so far.

The point here is that Waymo requires either an Android account or an Apple account to log into their phone app. Lose that and you cannot take a Waymo. This may be worth a formal complaint to the California Public Utilities Commission, because Waymo is regulated as a common carrier.

California civil code section 2170:

"A common carrier must, if able to do so, accept and carry whatever is offered to him, at a reasonable time and place, of a kind that he undertakes or is accustomed to carry. A common carrier must not give preference in time, price, or otherwise, to one person over another."[1]

This is the core of what it is to be a common carrier. An airline can't require that you join their frequent flyer plan to fly.

[1] https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-2169/

debazel• 4 months ago

You wouldn't even have to be a high profile target like a sanctioned judge. Simply getting your account banned by some automated process that marked you as "suspicious" will basically render you excluded from society.

It is absolutely insane to put this amount of power in 2 foreign companies that will be able to destroy your life with zero reason, oversight, or due process.

kouteiheika2• 4 months ago

This is not a hypothetical problem and you don't need to be deliberately targeted. It actually happens to normal people. And if it does you have absolutely zero recourse.

Source: I have a banned Google account (it's over 20 years old at this point). I know the password, but Google doesn't let me log into it. Every few years I try to unsuccessfully recover it.

If you have a Google account and having it banned would be a problem for you here's my advice: migrate. Right now. You never know when one of their bots will deem you a persona non grata.

hulitu• 4 months ago

Crazy to imagine that we are still baking in dependency on US providers in european societies

As long as the capital city is in Washington, this is normal.

jakoblorz3• 4 months ago

Not sure I‘m getting what you are saying - us providers‘ capital city is always in Washington DC, no?

Sorry if I’m misunderstanding something here

illiac7866• 4 months ago

Maybe it will be time to have a critical device around, that does not rely on Apple/google and has stuff like eID and other critical digital documents. But this is going to be annoying, carrying two devices. Maybe easier to keep the paper version as backup for such a case.

jakoblorz3• 4 months ago

It might not even have to be a smartphone, but much lighter yubikey style (pk/sk signature) devices.

I hate to say it but the form factor of those crypto hardware wallets might be a good compromise between smartphone and very low level tech. Non-tech folks should be able to use them too, a struggle that the crypto space is constantly working with

wolfi12• 4 months ago

I'm not quite sure if the German implementation is possible without mobile devices (couldn't find anything on that at first glance). the Austrian implementation on the other hand does not require a mobile device, if you want to do it on a pc you just need a fido2 token

NanoCoaster3• 4 months ago

I'm not sure either. I've looked at this other document: https://bmi.usercontent.opencode.de/eudi-wallet/eidas-2.0-ar...

It seems to imply that the already existing way of authenticating via eID, which is the auth chip present on our ID cards, will still work, if I read it correctly? I understand OP's link to refer to a new, alternative system, that can be used without the ID card.

But take this with a grain of salt, I'm not very well informed about the whole topic.

kodebach3• 4 months ago

As strange as it is, but Austria is quite far ahead in terms of eIDAS since we've had Handysignatur for more than a decade. I wouldn't be surprised, if the Germans are planning to support hardware tokens, but haven't had the time yet.

4ad2• 4 months ago

Austria is quite far ahead

Yeah, quite ahead in terms of making anonymous phone numbers illegal and requiring the government to know your phone number.

And if you don't want to use a smartphone, ID Austria does not work with regular FIDO security keys, you need special ones. Same for the old SmartCard system which didn't work without government-mandated malware.

spragl2• 4 months ago

I havent looked into the details of either, but what would prevent Germans from using the Austrian implementation?

wolfi12• 4 months ago

Austria provides their implementation only to people with Austrian citizenship or people working in Austria

goblin897• 4 months ago

In context of eIDAS, your phone starts to be used for much more sensitive matters than typing comments or even logging in to your bank. The repercussions from having a secretly patched bootloader can involve another person assuming your identity, including for large B2B transactions.

Requiring citizens to have (buy) some device to simply prove they are who they are seems hostile and dystopian to me. Some say it’s the future; I’m not convinced.

However, if you were to allow me to use my pocket computer (and nothing else) to prove I am who I say I am, you would want to trust that I am not pretending to be somebody else after extracting private keys from their phone or whatnot. I.e., you would want to require some sort of trusted computing.

Currently, that seems to only be provided by closed ecosystem phones.

Even still, I think it’s a mistake to be rolling out eIDAS as a mobile app first. The specification allows for this to be a dedicated hardware key (maybe even something YubiKey-like, and the EU already requires all phone manufacturers to have USB-C), so why not start with that.

goblin897• 4 months ago

Requiring citizens to have (buy) some device to simply prove they are who they are seems hostile and dystopian to me.

Actually, that is not what’s happening. Based on further research, the use of eIDAS is required to be left up to citizen’s decision.

RandomGerm4n2• 4 months ago

I attestation should be abolished altogether. An app should have absolutely no way of knowing what kind of device it’s running on or what changes the user has made to the system. It is up to each individual to ensure the security of their own device. App developers should do no more than offer recommendations. If someone wants to use GrapheneOS, root their device (not recommended), or run the whole thing in an emulator, a homemade compatibility layer under Linux, or a custom port for MS-DOS, that should be possible.

reddalo3• 4 months ago

Exactly. It's my own device, I can do whatever I please with it. There shouldn't be an automated way for apps to check if my device has been blessed by the US tech giants or not.

jurgenburgen• 4 months ago

It’s my own device so I should be allowed to let the manufacturer make it secure so I don’t need to worry about security.

I don’t want _all_ my devices to behave like that but I definitely want my phone to be more trustworthy for banking and government service purposes.

kodebach3• 4 months ago

I agree, you should be able to run anything you want, root your device, etc., but you also have to accept the consequences of that. If an app can no longer verify its own integrity, certain features are simply impossible to implement securely.

Think of it this way: A physical ID (which is what we're trying to replace here) also has limitations, it looks a certain way, has a certain size, etc. Just because somebody wants a smaller ID or one with a larger font or a passport in a different colour or whatever, doesn't mean that this should be allowed or possible. Some limitations exist for a good reason

applfanboysbgon7• 4 months ago

Comparing being able to run the hardware and software of your choice to "wanting a passport in a different color or whatever" is so completely fucked, and it's beyond insane as a justification for giving two American tech companies with a well established track record for doing evil control over your citizens' ID.

The world has gone absolutely mad, what the fuck am I even witnessing? It is quite literally becoming 1984 in front of my eyes, with people complying completely voluntarily and openly advocating for it, not even a threat of force to make it happen.

RandomGerm4n2• 4 months ago

Users have the right to modify any app running on their own device. Software security should never depend on the user having no control over their own device. Smartphones are essentially just regular computers, and on them you can use a debugger and do whatever you want. Viewing smartphones as closed systems like game consoles where you need the manufacturer’s permission for everything only leads us into the dystopia that Richard Stallman described as early as 1997 in his short story "The Right to Read"

GranPC• 4 months ago

Well, in that case, if they want full control and attestation yadda yadda, I'm fine with them shipping me a device they fully control exclusively for use of this stuff. But if we're talking about my smartphone that I paid for with my money that I worked for, I will do whatever I damn please with it. So I guess that means eIDAS will be inaccessible to me.

aenis4• 4 months ago

True, but its really hard to name a family of commercial devices with security features in hardware, including serious security features, which were not eventually hacked.

Worse still, for new mainstream devices that are believed to be safe the state sponsored actors will likely operate unpublished exploits, and will exploit the misplaced faith people and judiciary will put in device attestation. I dont think the very likeable people who worked on Pegasus found themselves respectable jobs - they are likely still selling that sophisticated crap to all authoritarian regimes.

EmbarrassedHelp5• 4 months ago

The German version of the eDIAS app should be completely banned from being used for age verification, if they wish to continue the project. Otherwise it effectively bans you from a sizeable portion of the internet, unless you accept unacceptable privacy violations.

selfhoster11• 4 months ago

No. I reject this framing. It is none of anybody's business how "secure" my device ever is. A smartphone is a piece of electronics, and not a tamper evident identity device.

no_time• 4 months ago

This is the original sin of modern computing. Almost all anti user features are only made possible because we didn't pass laws against "secure elements" that serve the maker and not the owner when NGSCB got announced.

aenis4• 4 months ago

Exactly this. And whats more, the idea of device attestation makes people trust those devices, and the history of rooting consoles and phones proves that nothing holds, even tech backed by billions in commercial interest.

The whole point in reducing the blast radius is valid - by all means make this optional and allow the user to elect to tie their identity to the device. For everyone else, implement validation of actual transactions, not just user secrets and device secrets.

viktorcode7• 4 months ago

An app should have absolutely no way of knowing what kind of device it’s running on or what changes the user has made to the system.

and therefore the app cannot give a reasonable guarantee that it is not running in an adversarial environment that actively tries to break the app's integrity. Thus, the app cannot be used as a verified ID with governmental level of trust.

pona-a• 4 months ago

If your app needs to be protected from harm, it cannot protect the user from said harm. I hoped software engineering culture was lucky to not have the same precepts that make lockpicking a crime in the real world, that we successfully make it into common knowledge that you can't grant any trust to the client, but it seems "trusted computing" is making some of us unlearn that lesson.

Aachen5• 4 months ago

There's a difference between needing to lock down the whole OS and just the secure element. The secure hardware component can sign a challenge and prove possession of a private key without you being able to extract it. Smartcards have done this for decades (most people here will know an implementation under the name Yubikey).

Conveying authentic information across untrusted channels (your phone screen, say) has been a solved problem since asymmetric cryptography was invented back before I was born

like_any_other3• 4 months ago

an adversarial environment that actively tries to break the app's integrity

Can you elaborate on what this means? Who is the adversary? What kind of 'integrity'? This sounds like the kind of vague language DRM uses to try to obscure the fact that it sees the users as the enemy. An XBox is 'compromised' when it obeys its owner, not Microsoft.

MetaWhirledPeas• 4 months ago

governmental level of trust

For most governments that is a very low bar.

wpm• 4 months ago

All the more reason to not be requiring such things in the first place.

chmod7753• 4 months ago

You do not have to trust the device if you can verify the information it provides, either cryptographically or by checking with an authoritative trusted server.

governmental level of trust

This made me laugh out loud. Not because it's a meaningless phrase (where does "governmental" rank on a scale of fully to least trusted?), but because it seems to imply that governments do not have a miserable track record when it comes to IT security.

Though I suppose considering a security model sound because it uses security through obscurity like a blackbox integrity check would be very... governmental.

Does that mean "govermental level of trust" ranks somewhere between "snake-oil" and "cope"?

darccio2• 4 months ago

It makes no sense. eIDAS 2.0 specs don't require specific hardware [0]. They basically store verifiable credentials [1] and any other cryptographically signed attestations.

This feels like laziness from German implementers, as they don't want to (quoting the spec literally) "implement a mechanism allowing the User to verify the authenticity of the Wallet Unit".

0: https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework...

1: https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework...

mradalbert• 4 months ago

Look at reference implementation. Maintainers resist removing google dependency for no good apparent reason. An if there is persistence without reason - there is a reason.

https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-andro...

stingraycharles2• 4 months ago

Why would this be? Bureaucracy / inability to change?

darccio2• 4 months ago

I don't feel they resist. Quoting them:

We understand your concerns and truly appreciate your suggestions. As previously mentioned, this is not something that is enforced by the reference implementation — these are simply recommendations, not requirements, for any wallet implementer. That said, we recognize that this is a sensitive topic, and we may need to revisit it, even at the level of recommendations.
The README files for both the iOS and Android Wallets have been updated to mention only OWASP MASVS compliance, without referencing any specific APIs.

I understand their position, but I also get the concern, especially around existing implementations like the Italian app. I think it's mostly that they have different priorities than ensuring that the reference implementation is a perfect guideline for member states.

This looks like a good vector for a European Citizen Initiative around removing all technological dependency on non-EU providers.

michaelt• 4 months ago

Operate European tech infrastructure without a dependency on America challenge (Impossible)

For 99% of smartphone users, you can't get apps onto their phones without Apple and Google signing the app and letting you into their store, and users can't install the app without an Apple/Google account.

Why remove a dependency on Google, when you'll still be 100% dependent on Google?

Anybody working on "Digital ID" has already made peace with the fact that it can be turned off overnight if Trump says so.

GoblinSlayer7• 4 months ago

5.4 Attestation Rulebooks and Attestation schemes

thomasingalls• 4 months ago

Europe needs a private European identity provider. Until this happens, Europe will remain a technological vassal state of the US.

These are expensive products, you need depth of expertise and experience to create a system that could compete with the likes of gmail and Microsoft and ... so it's not a wonder that this hasn't happened yet. But pretending like this can be a public service is foolish (too high stakes ~~if~~ when it gets hacked), and pretending like existing providers that offer identity and email are sufficient is equally foolish. Google and ms and apple etc all offer the basics for free, and this is necessary for mass adoption. It will be an expensive project. But necessary, if the eu wants strategic autonomy.

---

Oh and requiring a us based account is not even the most egregious part of this proposal, ffs

reddalo3• 4 months ago

Not only that, be we also need a European payment system that's not tied to VISA / MasterCard, etc.

We're currently paying a small tax to the US for each card transaction we have.

weddpros3• 4 months ago

Self Sovereign Identity (aka SSI) is the only way out of those identity sovereignty issues. It shouldn't be acceptable that your identity depends on anything or anyone. It should just be your identity.

A paper or certificate can prove an entity trusts your identity to be <firstname, lastname, etc...> but that shouldn't be your identity.

You just are. Not your google Id, not your Apple Id either of course.

Governments are lame.

s_dev• 4 months ago

You are conflating the philosophical notion of identity with functional identification in the real world. There is no cryptographic escape hatch from the social contract.

You just are/I just am

Is not an acceptable thing to say to a bar tender when being served an alcoholic drink when you're 22. You hand them government issued ID.

weddpros3• 4 months ago

I agree, and that government ID isn't your identity, it's just a piece of it.

I'm not arguing against government ID, I'm saying identity doesn't have to be that piece of paper, or that Google ID.

Analogy: if google ID is your primary key in your User table, then you're cooked. Instead use a uuid for the PK, and add Google ID as just another id. But the identity is the PK.

rcbdev6• 4 months ago

Governments are lame

In 2019, the EU created an eIDAS compatible European Self-Sovereign Identity Framework (ESSIF).

How is the government lame, here? We've had the infrastructure for 7 years now.

jonathanstrange6• 4 months ago

How is that not lame?

weddpros3• 4 months ago

eIDAS tends to hear "our European Sovereignty" when they hear Self-Sovereign.

You can't have a government issue a Self-Sovereign identity to you, it's an oxymoron. They can only issue credentials. But then they'd feel like they're losing control, so they pervert it. Now they call it SSI but it's just digital credentials.

The very title says it all: German implementation of eIDAS will require Google or Apple ID. That's not self-sovereign identity.

And that's why I find it lame.

userbinator2• 4 months ago

ISO7816 (smartcard) has existed for nearly 4 decades as the standard secure identity card, widely used by the banking industry among others. Very unintrusive and not hostile beyond needing to carry a little chip. If governments want a national ID, they could just give everyone one of those.

red_admiral• 4 months ago

Already exists as biometric passport or ID card in several countries. The problem is things like authenticating online to submit your tax form. App-as-2FA is kind of the standard for example to log in to your online bank portal, though for government services the threat model and privacy implications are different.

If you have a FIDO device on your (physical) keyring or a keyboard with a smart card reader or some kind of NFC transceiver connected to your PC, the problem is technically solved - just not practically.

Aachen5• 4 months ago

Note that phones also have NFC readers. Instead of requiring everyone to have a locked-down phone, they could offer day you use said phone to read the chip or use any other (USB) reader you like. I believe there's a German government app that already does this, Ausweisapp2 iirc. As someone with a different nationality who lives in Germany, I don't know more than that

JorgeGT• 4 months ago

This is exactly how we implemented eIDAS in Spain. The government-issued national ID (DNIe) is an ISO 7816-compliant smart card. Latest versions are also ISO 14443-compliant for contactless reading. To use it, you just need a simple smart card reader or an NFC-enabled phone. https://www.dnielectronico.es/PortalDNIe/PRF1_Cons02.action?...

elric5• 4 months ago

Belgium has had exactly this for decades. But now they want to get on the hype train for smartphone based ID, because card reader support is still shit in browsers in 2026.

Adding to this: anyone older than 12 years old is required by law to have their government issued ID on them at all times when in public. If your ID is suddenly your smartphone, you're essentially required to have that on you 24/7. Dystopian spyware.

Avamander21• 4 months ago

because card reader support is still shit in browsers in 2026.

Tragedy of the commons, nobody seems to have bothered to work on it. It's not like Chromium or Firefox wouldn't accept contributions.

userbinator2• 4 months ago

because card reader support is still shit in browsers in 2026

Around a decade ago I was working at a company that used smartcard login for authenticating to internal sites. I've heard of many others doing the same. USB card reader worked fine in both IE and Firefox at the time, so I take your statement to mean that we've somehow regressed since then (not surprising) or this was an isolated instance of success (less likely, considering the US government also uses this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Access_Card).

GoblinSlayer7• 4 months ago

There are even projects of compartmentalized applications, where the same card is used for several independent purposes.

SkiFire13• 4 months ago

It seems that many Android devices won't safisfy the requirements, even when using a device approved by Google:

MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY also includes the requirement that the device has received a security patch _within the last 12 months_

Good luck with that.

blindseeker• 4 months ago

Possibly I‘m not smart enough to understand, but from what I see is that the implementers intend to leverage existing security architecture of Android/Google and iOS/Apple, respectively- arguably to drive adoption. The document doesn’t state anywhere that Apple / Google account is a requirement to use German eIDAS. From what I can tell, one may (continue to) use its government issued ID card with electronic signature for authentication.

Please prove me wrong, I genuinely want to understand the implication of the linked document.

minusLik• 4 months ago

The account is not directly required, but you have a very hard time using an Android smartphone without a Google account. It's a bit easier with Apple, however both have in common that the apps required for eIDAS are available in their app stores – and they are not usable without an account (for common users).

It's an account requirement in a roundabout way.

webhamster• 4 months ago

German implementer here. We have to use some kind of attestation mechanism per the eIDAS implementing acts. That doesn't work without operating system support.

The initial limitation to Google/Android is not great, we know that, and we have support for other OSs on our list (like, e.g., GrapheneOS). It is simply a matter of where we focus our energy at the moment, not that we don't see the issues.

archerx3• 4 months ago

What if I don’t have a smartphone?

jahnu2• 4 months ago

I wonder if there will be a big enough market for a very compact smartphone equivalent device that can be used just for credentials? A device that is offline on standby except when you need it. Perhaps the size of a car key.

AndyMcConachie• 4 months ago

You're screwed. This has been the way for a while now. You cannot exist in society without a smart phone and it's only going to get worse.

anileated• 4 months ago

No one is required to use EUDI: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/EU...

Companies and providers (like banks) have to support it, but use is voluntary.

Check out the spec and legal framework, it actually makes sense and is open to different implementations, though you might need to certify it.

verbalize2224• 4 months ago

You should think about how easy it is to permanently lose access to your Google account for very trivial issues and Google doesn't offer any form of recovery. That in addition to the current geopolitical situation should be reason enough not to rely on that for any justification.

And personally as a software developer myself i know that nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution. No one will prioritize or give budget to change it later "because it works"

trklausss2• 4 months ago

What? They should freaking think of sanctions, not about "how easy is to lose Google account". Both Google and Apple are American companies. If someone lands on a sanctions list, they close your account without further notice [1].

Let me get this straight: you can be a defender of human rights, aligned with the country you live in, but if you fall in disgrace with the American government, _you can't even do transactions with your own country_.

So this is fundamentally flawed, and violates the fundamental rights of German citizens in Germany.

[1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/british-icc-chief-prosecutor-l...

GoblinSlayer7• 4 months ago

Can't you just make a new google account then?

ibbtown• 4 months ago

Why is a trusted device chain needed? It will put more trust in the potential Chinese device maker and American software companies than the user who's id is shown?

kodebach3• 4 months ago

Simply because the law was written that way. But also the whole idea of identity verification becomes pretty useless, if there is no chain of trust. You could run a modified client that lets you assume any identity you choose, exactly the opposite of what eIDAS is trying to achieve.

pwlb6• 4 months ago

This is necessary because the wallets contain an identity proofing functionality called PID(Person Identification Data). Showing these credentials basically approves you are you. There are high requirements for identity proofing that even pre-date wallets and that makes sense, because the potentially blast radius of identity theft is huge. Historically, these have been secured in smartcards, like eID cards or passports and are not shifting to the smartphone. Verifying the security posture of your device and app is therefore crucial.

brador• 4 months ago

Google has banned many accounts of genuine users.

What is your fallback for such an important vital service?

notpushkin7• 4 months ago

To play the devil’s advocate here: MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY on Android doesn’t require a Google account AFAIK. But it might change, of course.

Edit: but as pointed out elsewhere in the thread, Play Integrity is not the only way to do hardware attestation on Android. GrapheneOS devs have a guide: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...

So avoiding proprietary Google stuff altogether is possible and we should encourage it.

reconnecting• 4 months ago

Humiliating disregard for sovereignty.

ksjfjsmb• 4 months ago

Sich bei staatlichen Dienstleistungen auf Google oder Apple zu verlassen, kommt schon fast einem Verrat gleich. Trump hasst uns.

ghighi78783• 4 months ago

Tbh, I feel this is stupid.

Banks are giving out QR Tan. Optical TAN devices which work with credit cards and it has been going pretty well. Why can eiDAS not have something similar. Distribute hardware tokens. Get rid of dependency on any OS.

mariusor3• 4 months ago

I'm pretty sure electronic IDs are a good starting point for exactly this. Hopefully they get wider use inside the EU.

pwlb6• 4 months ago

Banks actually have high fraud rates today because of weak security mechanisms. If attackers steal your money, the bank will reimburse you. If attackers steal your identity, you are really screwed. Security requirements for banking and identity are simply different.

Avamander21• 4 months ago

Plenty of EU countries have rolled out SmartCards for this exact purpose, some are now adding NFC functionality. Nothing really stops Germany from continuing like that either.

The issue then becomes the UI/UX. If the legal mandate is not strong enough the solution will not gain enough ground. You can see this if you start comparing those countries with an eID rolled out.

omnibrain• 4 months ago

The German ID card (Personalausweis) supports certificates and communication via NFC. I really don’t understand what’s all this about?

longdidi• 4 months ago

Why not do it right from the beginning?

https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...

subscribed25• 4 months ago

They don't really want to.

Archelaos• 4 months ago

German citizen here. I find this attitude horrible and threatening. You are working on sacrificing yet another part of our digital sovereignty to a US company. There are trillions of better things to do with your life.

sam_lowry_4• 4 months ago

European Citizen here, and indeed lots of people in IT turn a blind eye onto the collateral damage their work may create.

I know someone who happily codes "verifiable credentials" in Elixir, disregarding all externalities.

vaylian2• 4 months ago

Thank you for chiming in.

We have to use some kind of attestation mechanism per the eIDAS implementing acts.

What does this attestation need to prove? Is this only about ensuring that private keys are managed by a secure enclave or a TPM?

we have support for other OSs on our list (like, e.g., GrapheneOS)

I appreciate that, even though I am really not enthusiastic of eIDAS. But time will tell. Thank you.

subscribed25• 4 months ago

They won't implement alternatives later, they'll be no point if "most of out customers is using either of the major providers".

Concerning secure enclave - what other device except iphones and Pixels have it actually safe?

notpushkin7• 4 months ago

Just a quick question, and sorry if it might have been answered already... why preventing duplication is so important? I know it’s in the spec probably [1], but I can’t figure out the reason.

And a suggestion: add external HSM support at least? (e.g. things like NitroKey/YubiKey)

[1] https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework... I suppose?

notpushkin7• 4 months ago

I’ve just had another, completely stupid but not implausible, idea:

a local internal WSCD, which is a component within the User device, such as a SIM, e-SIM, or embedded Secure Element,

So you could issue SIM-cards / eSIM profiles that only do signatures and nothing else. The app then connects to such eSIM (and you keep your main SIM/eSIM in another slot).

The less stupid variant is, of course, to get mobile operators to issue SIM cards with e-sign capabilities. Estonia has that, for example: https://www.id.ee/en/mobile-id/

pwlb6• 4 months ago

Preventing credential duplication is a requirement to achieve high level of assurance. One of its purpose is to limit the potential damage that can be done by attacks. If credentials are bound to hardware-bound keys, attackers will always need access to this key store to make any miss-use. If you don't prevent duplication, attackers may extract credentials and miss-use them at a 1000 places simultaneously.

anonzzzies• 4 months ago

I think it should be possible IMHO, like it is for many banks (still), to get a hardware token and then use whatever hardware/browser. Even a nice EU hardware token which allows banks , govs etc to add their keys/seeds in the enclave would be nicer so I don't have the lug 1000 tokens around, but it's still better than having to trust non sovereign companies for anything without backup; like multiple here said; Google/Apple getting the command from the Dep of War to shut down EU phone attestation, you losing your account etc, or, you know, me simply not wanting to use their stuff.

ExoticPearTree4• 4 months ago

The hardware tokens ate being phased out by banks and replaced with SMS OTP codes + passwords.

Cost saving measures.

Its funny to see that I can access the bank account through FaceID but to actually make a payment I need to use an SMS code.

egorfine• 4 months ago

That doesn't work without operating system support

Do you realize where this path is going?

Certain European governments would have greatly benefited from KYC/attestation in the late 1930s had it existed.

elric5• 4 months ago

Yup. But apparently the EU is refusing to take lessons from history.

khalic• 4 months ago

It's insane to make yourselves US dependent from the very beginning, at least provide something like a crypto-key that you can get from an official, banks can do it, so can you.

haagch7• 4 months ago

German citizen here. So why is an implementation going forward when you already know it will not serve all citizens? Why are we not refusing to implement this until we know we can make it work on all devices?

Personally I recently switched from an AOSP based android without Google Play to Ubuntu Touch. In the future with better hardware support I will probably switch to postmarketOS.

dark-star• 4 months ago

because then it will never get done. There are still people using old Nokia phones, for those there will never be a solution.

The usual 80/20 rule applies here as well.

And if you really are a German citizen, you know how slow the wheels of government already turn in Germany, I assume next week you would be the one complaining that "Germany is so far behind" and that "other countries are so much faster at implementing stuff" :)

p2detar5• 4 months ago

Do we have stats how many germans use something else than Google Android, Samsung Knox or Apple? I recon it should be less than 1% which quite honestly is in fact „all“ citizens.

ExoticPearTree4• 4 months ago

Why are we not refusing to implement this until we know we can make it work on all devices?

Simply put: this will never happen. Way too many devices implementations to make this a reality.

miki1232113• 4 months ago

Do all German hospitals serve vegan food?

If you were averse to carrots (without any health restrictions on eating them), would every government institution in Germany be required to serve you carrot-free food?

If not, why should they be forced to accommodate every smartphone brand in existence, even if there's only 3 people in Germany using it? THe list has to end somewhere.

dabber21• 4 months ago

also German here, we have to get rid of the 100% perfection at launch expectation its crippling this country

like_any_other3• 4 months ago

it will not serve all citizens

This is an understatement. Better phrasing would be "when it allows two unaccountable foreign companies to lock citizens out of the digital market".

There are plenty of horror stories of tech giants frivolously banning people. We shouldn't be adding state support to that. I don't want to lose access to digital banking because of some deliberately vague "community guidelines" violation, or because I got mass-reported to some "e-safety" provider that both Apple and Google outsource to.

Sibling comments see this as a good solution, just not a perfect one. I see it as making a bad problem worse.

gmueckl2• 4 months ago

You have the totally wrong expectations here. Some service that requires citizens to buy and bring their own devices in order to use a service will by definition always be exclusive. Whining about lacking compatibility with some niche sbowflake devices is just inappropriate in this context. The only solutiin is to require an actually convenient fallback for those otherwise excluded from that service.

The limited selection of attestation providers can be criticized for many other reasons, though.

raw_anon_11112• 4 months ago

Because you can’t please all of the people. And before someone likens it to the ADA. Even with accommodations you have to make, car makers aren’t for instance required to make cars that blind people can drive.

You chose to use a non mainstream platform. Thats on you.

illiac7866• 4 months ago

You are assuming it will not be possible to add support to other OS. Why?

What would be “knowing it can work on grapheneOS” for example, in your view?

retired• 4 months ago

Perhaps look at the Spanish Cl@ve, it works with Linux. It's just a simple digital certificate that allows you to identify yourself.

You can even run it on OpenBSD or TempleOS if you want to.

fredgrott• 4 months ago

so I have to buy a Yubikey hardware thingie to keep my Google account just to use eIDAS??

For those that do not know, that is the only way to get the Google account back is to use a hardware 2FA in the first place....

AND yubikeys are $60 per yubikey...and generally you want 2 including a backup

tannhaeuser• 4 months ago

You must go back to the drawing board and rely on highly-regulated Telecom standards (that's why they were mandated in the first place!) not monopolistic defacto "best practices" you have no influence over because they're more convenient for you.

This is simply unconstitutional and should be escalated ASAP if you don't want to end it before the appropriate court in Leipzig, Karlsruhe, or maybe Luxembourg.

jonathanstrange6• 4 months ago

Another German citizen here. I think what you're doing is illegal and will be blocked by German courts.

0x3f2• 4 months ago

It's funny because this is also the exact German response for when your neighbour has an unsanctioned BBQ.

gorgoiler• 4 months ago

I know it’s not quite the same thing as an OS vendor, but culturally, if you’re having trouble empathizing with the ick in this thread then imagine if the initial implementation was available only for account holders with Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, or MySpace.

oytis4• 4 months ago

I don't get it. Are mechanisms in our ID cards not strong enough so that we have to rely on the security of the operating system?

NanoCoaster3• 4 months ago

Will eIDAS be the only way to identify yourself in cases where it's needed, or will we be able to user other mechanisms like the german ID card stuff or an entirely separate alternative?

Or to put it another way, is a smartphone required? If not, that would already clear up a lot of issues, I think.

EDIT: Whoops, just saw the answer to another comment asking precisely this. So it's not a requirement. Good. Is there a legal framework that ensures that this remains the case? Otherwise, I fear it will become a de facto requirement over time.

jech• 4 months ago

One datapoint: at least in practice, it used to be impossible to delete an entry in the French INPI database (trademarks and company names) without eIDAS. It forced me to unearth an old unmodified Android phone (I run LineageOS on my main phone).

If you read French:

* https://www.plus.transformation.gouv.fr/experiences/4531155_...

* https://linuxfr.org/users/jch-2/journaux/l-identite-numeriqu...

Aachen5• 4 months ago

Also if you are legally required to be able to use some backup mechanism, it can become the de facto requirement

regnerd• 4 months ago

that‘s not correct. Article 5 eIDAS2 explicitly states, that europeans exercise full control over their data. Therefore EUDI wallet must not be a walled garden. Especially if the wallet shall be used for authenticating and signing, it must be available to all europeans, even those sanctioned by the US.

If this is your plan, please go back to the drawing board.

eMPee584• 4 months ago

There's a new initiative by some non-google non-apple phone vendors called *UnifiedAttestation* which I hope you will support at some point in the future:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Paying-without-Google-New-conso...

nip4• 4 months ago

In light of all of these shortcomings with platform attestation, why go with the eIDAS 2 wallet approach at all? eIDAS 1 already solved this with Mobile-ID (SIM-based, no Google/Apple dependency) and Smart-ID (server-side key management with minimal platform reliance). What does the wallet model give you that justifies this level of dependency on two American corporations’ proprietary backends?

Especially considering that mobile-ID has been around since 2007.

nip4• 4 months ago

I’m sorry to lash out at you but I keep getting disappointed in European countries (more precisely the ever disappointing EU commission) all suffering of the NIH syndrome instead of collaborating and learning from each other

mytailorisrich7• 4 months ago

Isn't the eIDAS 2 wallet approach a legal requirement of eIDAS 2 (which is an EU regulation, i.e. the law).

Avamander21• 4 months ago

SIM-based solutions are on their way out because phones are starting to lose SIM slots. Certifying eSIM implementations to the same EAL level (as Mobile-ID SIMs are) is way way too difficult. At least for one country doing it alone.

Smart-ID sucks. It's not truly hardware-backed, it's proprietary and has fundamental flaws like not having a direct link between the site being authenticated to and the authenticating device (auth can be proxied, just like if it were just plain TOTP).

pwlb6• 4 months ago

EIDAS 2 motivation is implicitly that eID failed in eIDAS 1. It simply either didn't take off or didn't work at all

gmerc3• 4 months ago

“Not Great” is the understatement of the century. It fails to protect sovereign identity by handing the default to companies not only under foreign sanctions control but who also lock people from their accounts without recourse.

The device chain is a classic misdirection, it seems everyone here is just following Meta’s lobbying to put this into the OS.

Even the carrier layer would be better than the mobile device layer.

Or, you know, just look at Singapore’s or Swiss National SSO - it functions on an app that layer just fine, no issues

See https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-andro...

Aldipower• 4 months ago

"Not great" is quite an understatement from a European perspective.

We're talking about a state-issued digital identity system, the European equivalent of your ID card, that cannot function without accounts at two US corporations. That's not a UX limitation. That's a structural dependency on foreign infrastructure for core state sovereignty.

The concerns aren't abstract. The US has a documented history of mass surveillance programs (PRISM, XKeyscore) that directly targeted European citizens and governments. Both Apple and Google operate under US jurisdiction, which means CLOUD Act requests, national security letters, and executive pressure are all legal avenues for US government access. PlayIntegrity is explicitly described in your own architecture docs as a black box: "we do not know what they are actually doing in their backend." A critical security component of a state identity system, and you don't know what it does. That's not an engineering trade-off, that's an accountability gap.

GrapheneOS being "on the list" is not reassuring. It means the system launches in a state where European citizens who have actively chosen to reduce their dependence on US Big Tech are excluded from their own national digital identity infrastructure.

The EU passed GDPR to establish digital sovereignty. It's building eIDAS to establish identity sovereignty. Baking in a hard dependency on Google and Apple at the attestation layer undermines both, by design, at launch.

oakpond• 4 months ago

Shouldn't the energy instead be focused on creating a standardized eIDAS driver API that OS vendors are required to implement?

utopiah• 4 months ago

The initial limitation to Google/Android [...] is simply a matter of where we focus our energy at the moment

Nice... so the rush is to delegate power to the large American platform?

bakugo3• 4 months ago

We have to use some kind of attestation mechanism per the eIDAS implementing acts.

Sounds like these "eIDAS implementing acts" are the problem, and were influenced by ulterior motives.

isodev• 4 months ago

The initial limitation to Google/Android is not great

It’s also illegal on both accessibility grounds as well as violating the eIDAS spirit of no dependency on specific providers.

By shrugging it off as “not great”, you’re also dooming every citizen to have to comply with whatever whimsical terms of service Google and Apple have.

Have you ever tried to unban your Apple/Google account? So in effect, everyone’s access to eID services will depend on some crappy automation some intern in California setup to detect “abuse” or whatever.

There are technical solutions to avoid this dependency and you’re probably getting paid to find, research and adopt them. So … do your job?

ulrikrasmussen2• 4 months ago

This is simply unacceptable. You are not making an innocent pragmatic compromise here, you are launching digital infrastructure which initially will tie everyone to Google/Apple and give alternatives a huge disadvantage for an unknown amount of time. Nobody knows when, or even if ever, support for open platforms will arrive.

You should be ashamed of being involved in this monopoly handover to American big tech.

aenis4• 4 months ago

Fingers crossed for the judiciary - if the implementers ignore the intention of the law, then lawyers will have to help them understand the limits of corner cutting - and block this.

subscribed25• 4 months ago

I bet £50 that the alternative (eg GrapheneOS attestation (based on the standard AOSP attestation)) will be delayed, then delayed, then scrapped since almost everyone is using Google Plag integrity anyway.

Yes, I assume malicious intent, sorry, seen this happen enough tines recently.

chaz6• 4 months ago

Have you considered Unified Attestation [1] which is an alternative to Google's?

[1] https://uattest.net/

tadfisher4• 4 months ago

Oh dang, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you.

EmbarrassedHelp5• 4 months ago

That just puts the power to allow/ban rooting and operating systems in the hands of a different set of companies. Its still unacceptable.

codethief2• 4 months ago

The initial limitation to Google/Android is not great, we know that, and we have support for other OSs on our list (like, e.g., GrapheneOS).

GrapheneOS uses standard Android APIs for hardware attestation (as opposed to Google-specific ones), so why don't you just use those from the get-go?

izacus7• 4 months ago

They did. This is why Graphene works.

zajio1am2• 4 months ago

Why not just use U2F or certificates on crypto-tokens?

zajio1am2• 4 months ago

Note that for eIDAS 1, a Czechia e-identity provider uses U2F tokens.

crest• 4 months ago

This is on the stupid side of lazy (again). You'll still be sovereign only at the pleasure of Apple and Google if you submit to their platform as a service crap.

inexcf2• 4 months ago

Side question. How come it is always the most incompetent people who get put in charge of implementing things like that. Over and over apps and services are developed in Germany and completely fail at what they are supposed to achieve. Where are these people recruited from?

matheusmoreira• 4 months ago

and we have support for other OSs on our list (like, e.g., GrapheneOS)

Excellent. Massive respect to you for doing this. This attestation business is an existential threat to "other" operating systems. I'm glad to see people are putting effort into supporting them.

morpheuskafka• 4 months ago

What happens if someone is banned from both companies (even for a very legitimate reason such as hosting illegal content -- they still need to access government services)?

dudefeliciano8• 4 months ago

What about people hosting content that is illegal in the US but not Germany (not sure what that may be now, but with the direction the US is taking maybe in a couple years even the fat Vance meme could become some kind of illegal subversive content). Anger the big daddy and your identitiy is gone.

mrsssnake• 4 months ago

We have to use some kind of attestation mechanism per the eIDAS implementing acts.

Translates to:

"We have to make sure citized accessing the public service have not control over the device per the eIDAS implementing acts"

dudefeliciano8• 4 months ago

glad that the "move fast break things" mentality has finally arrived to Germany, just didn't expect the public sector to be the first to implement it

amaccuish• 4 months ago

Why the need for a Cloud HSM?

whizzter4• 4 months ago

Is this implementation related to the AusweissApp I've seen mentioned before (that reads the cert via NFC from a physical card) or another implementation?

nforgerit• 4 months ago

Congrats, this is the stupidest thing I’ve been reading all day. And that includes the orange man’s post.

hans_castorp• 4 months ago

German citizen as well.

So with a Jolla phone and Linux laptop, I am left in the cold.

tadfisher4• 4 months ago

Are you interested in a community-maintained alternative to Play Integrity? I work in the finance sector and it's increasingly likely I'll have to implement attestation at some point. Graphene's examples are adaptable, but we need a DB of open Android distribution keys and effective admin to support adding and revoking, possibly something like the LVFS system for Linux firmware.

greatgib• 4 months ago

You know that it is how Germany got its darker period when people were just "doing their job" despite being against the good of the population. Without good conscious!

EmbarrassedHelp5• 4 months ago

Why not explicitly forbid the German version of the eDIAS from being used for things like age verification then? That'd solve a ton of privacy issues with the implementation.

frm88• 4 months ago

With a view on current geopolitics I find it absolutely irresponsible to use two US companies for attestation. The sanctions on ICC judges/prosecutors at the latest should have shown that it is a matter of national security to avoid a possibility of being completely shut down by an unstable US government. How do you propose to deal with people who get sanctioned or banned by Google/Apple for whatever reason? What measures do you have in place so these people can still access their ID?

account422• 4 months ago

The proper response to requirements ruling out an ethical implementation is to not implement them, not to provide an unethical implementation.

zkmon• 4 months ago

Google is becoming a bit draconic. They did not allow me to create new email account, saying I already have too many accounts. But they also don't allow me to delete existing accounts, saying there is no authentication method available to access/delete those old accounts.

tsoukase• 4 months ago

EU depending so much on Goo/App feels suspicious for direct lobbying, as someone noted. If I were Ursula, I would draw a red line: no US digital dependence. But the rounding error of the rounding error of these trillion dollar companies is enough to expunge the nonexistent EU infra.

sylware• 4 months ago

Well, since it happened also for my gov (France) 10 years ago, we can see this pattern happening in the whole EU.

There is a mixure of incompetence and big tech aggressive lobbying on gov 'standards' all over EU... making anything internet hard locked on big tech ultra-massively complex software, protocols and file formats.

In my country, it is the web: classic web support interop was actually killed 10 years ago. Now, only web apps requiring one of the gigantic and ultra complex web engines from the WHATNG cartel are working. No more "small' web engines (including their SDK) does work, and it did close the door for good to anything 'not big tech' (here the WHATNG cartel), what a bummer, oopsie!

In means in my country, to interact with the gov agencies and dependencies, you are now FORCED BY LAW to use only WHATNG cartel web engines. Wow, corruption (there is big public money there)? brain washing grade lobbying (what seems to be the case)? incompetence (always expected on complex matters)?

To add insult to injury, in my country, the ONLY person who have the power to fix that is the prime minister (then also the president). Oooof!

Of course, very simple classic web sites do work on 'smart phones' (apple did threaten to remove its browser... we know why: to force a technical hard dependency on them since they have a significant amount of the "market").

We all know their weak spot: a simple and stable in time, "good enough" to do the job, set of existing protocols/file formats (to protect the SDKs, I would include the computer languages, for instance excluding c++ and similar for plain and simple C and assembly to protect against the obviously ultra-complex SDK components): it will reduce dramatically the complexity and size of any current and future, local, implementations.

What's seems to be happening when I look at that: some people all over EU countries are trying to fight their way out of big tech because of gov officials probably being brain washed by lobbying (do not exclude the possibility of "corruption" and there is always some level) of incompetence which is expected).

Since it is happening in France and Germany, core of the EU...

Now what?

trklausss2• 4 months ago

Knowing the German, how much of a fiasco will this be? Many Germans despise having to go online with specific services due to "Datenschutz". Now you are telling them that they need an external (American) service in order to use this?

What I don't understand is: ELSTER (taxes) already uses electronic signatures, don't these signature already fulfil the requirements of eIDAS? Why do we even need Google/Apple?

coretx2• 4 months ago

Germans are likely going to try and hang the public servants for high treason via their constitutional court.

verisimi• 4 months ago

Corporations + government = fascism.

Fascism is the reality.

And its global.

Global fascism is what is already the case.

sajithdilshan• 4 months ago

As someone living in Germany, the alternative would be snail mail, which is used to send a pre-authentication code, username and then another code. This is pretty common with insurance providers, German traditional banks, etc. However, the annoying part is that if you ever forget or lose the code, then you would have to request a new one via mail that would arrive like 2 weeks after.

jonathanstrange6• 4 months ago

The alternative is a secure physical device and that's also the correct way to go if you insist on having online ID checks and take digital sovereignty seriously instead of making it a joke lip service like these implementers do.

makerofthings• 4 months ago

Requiring people to use products from one of two private American companies with a bad track record of locking people out of their accounts is more than “not great”. Some things are better not done if they can’t be done well.

mytailorisrich7• 4 months ago

Yes but in the real world all smartphones are either Apple or Android. Europe has zero footprint in either software or hardware. It is not creating a requirement to use specific products, it is using the products people already have.

So one may argue that the implementers are only taking the pragmatic approach regarding something that is out of their hands.

jonathanstrange6• 4 months ago

We're talking about an essential government service, not just another weather app. You have to look at this through the lense of national security, the debate about EU digital sovereignty, and the requirements of the GDPR in light of the US CLOUD Act, as well as prior decisions of EU courts about these issues.

subscribed25• 4 months ago

It literały has created the dependency on google when thought Android offers the standard/generic AOSP attestation.

Also you weirdly forget all the Chinese phones. There's also some tiny European brand which will have absolutely no way to limit their users dependency on the famously hostile and unconctactable provider.

qwertox• 4 months ago

Maybe that will force the companies to not be allowed to just lock you out of the account.

gmerc3• 4 months ago

Ya, sorry, no, maybe is not really a durable position here.

subscribed25• 4 months ago

You, your siblings, your parents, etc, etc.

spwa49• 4 months ago

So what can be used as an attestation API? WHAT will make sure that when a phone says "you're paying 10 euro to $coffee_place" that it isn't a bitmap being shown over "you're paying 10.000 euro to $scammer", above the pay button. Note: needs to be a real guarantee that isn't a permission question away from going away.

Either governments can develop (and pay for) THAT technology, or they can use Apple/Google ...

xorcist3• 4 months ago

That seems like a weak argument to require attestation? What would attestation prevent that scenario, specifically?

miki1232113• 4 months ago

I'm not sure I want my government to develop that technology.

Government software is usually low-quality, expensive procurement crap, often riddled with security holes, and an exercise in checkbox checking. UX and user friction can't be expressed as a verifiable clause in a procurement contract, so they're ignored.

Besides, every time EU governments tried to force smartphone manufacturers to pre-install government apps, the population freaked out over (unwarranted) surveillance concerns. This isn't something you can do without pre-installing apps (you don't want these APIs opened up because then attestation loses all meaning).

subscribed25• 4 months ago

In case of Android - AOSP attestation.

Not necessarily the company that locks out entire family because one of the family member jacked off on the chat with Gemini model.

ExoticPearTree4• 4 months ago

There are no alternatives.

I mean you could use Huawei and others, but the FUD campaigns against chinese manufacturers was pretty agressive in the EU.

letmetweakit• 4 months ago

:facepalm:

ttkari• 4 months ago

Oh but isn't that great. This is just the kind of digital sovereignty these times call for.

Sometimes I wish the Germans had an island of their own somewhere up north near the american continent.

robertDouglass• 4 months ago

lobbyists!

kkfx• 4 months ago

Simply eIDAS must works on smart-cards and desktop USB/built-in card reader, not mobile (cr)App.

BUT government do not want sovereignty more than they want snoop on citizens.

coretx2• 4 months ago

Time for a digital Reichstag fire. When will the germans stop repeating history ?

nickslaughter022• 4 months ago

How many billions will EU countries spend on this bull shit? Who needs it?

ldng• 4 months ago

The solution is simple : https://www.europarl.europa.eu/petitions/en/artcl/I+want+to+...

Because you'll be stonewalled by devs because they can't really changer decisions made bu higher ups.

Edit: I'd sign it, but don't want manage and diffuse it.

8note• 4 months ago

What does the eIDAs do?

Does this lock Germans out of society if they dont buy American tech?

txrx00002• 4 months ago

This is about mass surveillance and control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Revelations

The existence of eIDAS itself is already a big problem. They're going to try to gradually push laws to make it so that you'll need a government issued signature to do anything. That's when they'll have total power over you because they can simply refuse to issue.

Modern computing and communications technologies can be leveraged to build infinitely stable authoritarian regimes. It's even possible for democracies to stumble into it on their own as they attempt to regulate these new technologies. In hindsight, the Internet was built wrong. It has a top-down structure which all of human civilization is beginning to mirror.

TacticalCoder• 4 months ago

They're going to try to gradually push laws to make it so that you'll need a government issued signature to do anything.

And in the EU it's already nearly the case. The dystopian horror that KYC/AML has become for honest citizens is beyond belief. And they're of course hiding behind the excuse that "bad guys are laundering money": but going after actual drug dealers, of course they're not doing that. We now have articles wondering if Belgium (where most of the EU institutions do live and where all these totalitarian laws are passed) has become a "narco-state" (where criminals make the rules).

People's life can be ruined when some employee, somewhere, decides he wants to bumps his SAR quota (Suspicious Activity Report): you can have a real-estate transaction fail (and have hence moreover to pay a 10% penalty to the other party) if either a notary, bank employee, real-estate agency employee decided that they've got the nostalgy of the Gestapo-time and decided to act like a good little nazi (yes, Godwin's law: for we're literally talking about totalitarism).

I recently had an notary's employee bother my brother for the source of funds when he bought an apartment... A quarter of a century ago. A quarter of a century ago and he was talking to my brother as if he was a criminal for he didn't have access anymore to the bank wire transfer from 25+ years ago. It's crazy for the exact same controls had already been done 25+ years ago when he bought the apartment. And the notary's employee fully knows that. (regarding that case my brother is currently looking into the national federation of notaries and he's going to file a complaint: he's got emails from that notary's employee that are totally out of line).

The problem is way too much power over the lives of others is put into the hands of petty people: petty bank employees, petty notary employees, petty public servants. The same kind of people who were all too happy to out jews during WWII and who were making sure trains would leave on time.

I previously had a folder where every single money transfer of more than 10 K EUR was saved: I know do it for every transfer below 5 K EUR. And these are to be kept forever for I know that me or my wife or my daughter shall invariably meet motherfuckers asking them "proof of the source of funds from 30 years ago when your father bought that collectible car" (worth less than 20 K back then btw, but worth 6 digits now).

Just fuck these systems and fuck anyone working on it and fuck all the nazis participating in it.

ghosty1412• 4 months ago

They're going to try to gradually push laws to make it so that you'll need a government issued signature to do anything. That's when they'll have total power over you because they can simply refuse to issue.

The more this signature is necessary the harder it becomes to deny issueing it to somebody.

I don't see how this changes much compared to nowadays. You can already require an ID for all kinds of these and the government already has total control over those. So what changes? China manages to ruin the lives of the people illegally born under the 1-child-policy for decades already, all without systems like eIDAS.

You can't protect yourself from authoritarian regimes with tech or good policy since those will just get ignored. Look at Trumps war with Iran, where did Congress agree to it?

I'm not a fan of these systems either, I also think software should be open and no vendor lock-in should exist. But I don't think this will change much to be honest.

txrx00002• 4 months ago

It will matter a lot in the long run. I will outline one concrete way it will matter, which I think is the most critical, but there are other ways it will do damage besides this:

Right now, physical ID is only required for government services, for the most part. But digital signatures can be extended later to gate all services and purchases, both online and physical, including non-government ones. For example, you can't host a website without a gov approved signature for each website.

Under a system like that, you would rarely find out when the gov refuses to issue a signature, or when any kind of injustice happens, really. Websites where people can talk about bad things happening to them will simply be denied a signature to legally operate, so they're given the ultimatum to "voluntarily" censor posts, or be shut down. It becomes impossible to have this very conversation on a public platform with any kind of meaningful reach. And they already have this kind of system in China, since you brought it up. In fact, they have domestic surveillance systems that make the Snowden disclosures look cute.

jbverschoor• 4 months ago

eIDIOTS I guess

Glorified22022• 4 months ago

Can every german citizen opt out?

Glorified22022• 4 months ago

Can every german citizen just opt out and not have to use any kind of digital ID?

docmars• 4 months ago

This is such an egregious and embarrassing breach in privacy, it's crazy.

GDPR good, but oh no... gotta spy on everyone now.

German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function

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