In my (European) country now we can have a digital copy of the driving license on the phone. It specifically says that it’s valid to be presented to law enforcement officers during a check.
I saw amazed in the beginning. They went from limited beta testing to full scale nationwide launch in just two months. Unbelievable. And I even thought “wow this is so convenient I won’t need to take the wallet with me anymore”. I installed the government app and signed up with my government id and I got my digital driving license.
Then yesterday I got stopped by a random roadblock check and police asked me my id card. I was eager to immediately try the new app and show them the digital version, but then because music was playing via Bluetooth and I didn’t want to pause it, i just gave the real one.
They took it and went back to their patrol for a full five minutes while they were doing background checks on me.
That means if I used the digital version, they would had unlimited access to all my digital life. Photos, emails, chats, from decades ago.
What are you are going to do, you expect that they just scan the qr code on the window, but they take the phone from your hand. Are you going to complain raising doubts? Or even say “wait I pin the app with a lock so you can’t see the content?”
“I have nothing to hide” but surely when searching for some keywords something is going to pop-up. Maybe you did some ironic statement and now they want to know more about that.
And this is a godsend for the secret services. They no longer need to buy zero day exploits for infecting their targets, they can just cosplay as a patrol and have the victim hand the unlocked phone, for easy malware installation
Immediately uninstalled the government app, went back to traditional documents.
As others already stated there are solutions already to pin apps and to be honest, I feel I would not give the phone to a policeman like that.
On the other hand, what I’m more concerned about is giving the access to my phone’s data through different permissions to my government.
For example this is the list of permissions for the Hungarian government app: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/hu.gov.dap.app/latest/#trackers
To add to this, a lot of what keeps us safe is the friction of bureaucracy. Authoritarians cannot micromanage every decision you make or round up every person they want because those actions take time and resources that aren’t infinite. But you can reduce the time and resources required if you make identification more convenient and therefore enforcement more targeted. Maybe now they can justify making you present ID every time you pay cash at Starbucks, buy a backpack, get on a bus, use a bike share, watch hot snuff porn, you name it.
Every country in Europe that has vastly better privacy laws than the US, also already has national ID since forever.
Now they even became electronic biometric IDs, and I still don’t need to show it whenever I buy a loaf of bread.
Even if, why would anyone ever want to bother when they could just track your payment cards?
Not in Australia where it is illegal for the police to touch your phone.
They can compel you to reveal your password without a warrant but can’t touch your phone? Is that a state law?
Dont we have a right to a lawyer and to not self incriminate? Surly they need a court order to compelled u to reveal ur password?
https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca191482/s3la.html
It does require a court order, but notably you do not need to be suspected of a crime.
Dont we have a right […] to not self incriminate?
Not that I’m aware of, but if you find otherwise, let me know!
It requires a magistrate to issue an order at least. But yeah seems we are fucked. Is there any way one could devise a method to which it is literally impossible for you to provide said information if u dont want? Like could u tie unlocking to somthing they cannot legally compell u to do without violating ur human rights?
That’s a limitation in your countries implementation then. The owner must have full control of what data to present or at least category based requests.
There’s a good chance they have a Cellebrite in their car and will copy your entire phone’s storage over.
Forensic acquisition tools like Cellebrite take hours to clone storage. Not saying they wouldn’t do it, just saying that legitimate acquisition that can be used against you has to be collected in a very certain way for it to be proof.
And you’ll get a tinfoil hat as a reward
Yeah because the police using a commercially available and ridiculously cheap device to copy data from your phone is totally unbelievable. I must be the crazy one.
News flash, they’re not FBI tier ultra classified tools anymore, you can find them on eBay for less than $1000. There’s a good chance that’s cheaper than the phone you have right now. You think a police department who is already intent on scrolling through your phone while “checking your ID” wouldn’t just put one in every cruiser?
You think a government can ask a couple of dozen thousand, barely literate goons to do something like this without the word getting out within a week?
Yes, and phones have up to 1000gb of storage nowadays. It’ll take a minute :p
I have the digital id in case i forget my physical one (despite not legaly being required to carry id) but its in an empty graphene os profile.
They don’t need to take your phone with them. They literally can just scan the code, because it sends all the info to their screen, that they were gonna look up anyway.
No way the government implemented an app for this use case. That’s extremely inefficient.
I thought you actually tried, that they took your phone?
Illinois at least passed a law to limit the consent given when using a digital ID with a police officer such that they’re ONLY allowed to use it for ID and not snooping, but that’s the only state to do so.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/should-i-use-my-states-digital-drivers-license
But do you trust them to follow the law? I certainly don’t.
Couldn’t these apps also use the Android/iOS’ wallet manager which allows handing it over unlocked while the phone is “closed” (not necessarily locked, though…)?
I don’t know if they could, because they will probably compromise all information into the wallet.
But it’s a good idea. I hope that it can be implemented like you said in a secure way.
I just double checked on my phone, on Android you can pin the current app, that limits access for the user to only that app. Unpinning requires you to essentially unlock the phone again. I wouldn’t hand my phone to a pig either, but if I pinned the app, it would be secure enough for a traffic stop.
For people with iPhone you can do this too.
Go to settings and pull down with your finger to get the search box to appear, then search for “Guided” and click “Guided access”.
Enable this setting as well as toggling “Accessibility shortcut”. Now you can open an app and triple click the lock button and select guided access.
Now the phone is locked in that app and to come out of it requires the passcode.
Thanks man. This is really useful whenever i need to show someone anything on my iphone.
No problem.
Yeah it’s great for giving your friends your phone if you don’t trust them not to try and fuck with you for jokes. Or if using it for playing music in a group gathering.
Even for children using the device. Particularly as you can set the volume and not give them the permission to change it.
Convenience always has a cost
Pit it on another phone that you keep in your car or another profile with nothing else on it
A phone that still has your GPS tracking data stored in it?
…no
I mean you’re carrying it around, right?
That sounds like carrying an ID card with extra steps.
Pit it on another phone that you keep in your car or another profile with nothing else on it
That means if I used the digital version, they would had unlimited access to all my digital life. Photos, emails, chats, from decades ago.
Do they actually take your phone when you present it to them for digital ID? They don’t scan it and bring up the same information on their scanner?
No they don’t, they just scan it and dont take the phone. But of course, they could.
Hi, Your dedicated local Secret Service agent here.
We don’t need your smartphone to access your data. We have surveillance equipment for that. That is why we can scan the qr code of your ID app and do the checks we need.
If you want us not to track you, you need a degoogled smartphone and use cash exclusively. Also you could use a vpn while you browse the interwebs, but we ll still be, eventually, able to see where you browse.
BTW we don’t stop randomly ppl on roadblocks. You or your car or your route or all of the above was of concern for us.
They aren’t from the USA
Neither is the person you’re responding to, we don’t have any manner of digital ID in the US.
Actually you do have them in the us too now. It’s just only in nine states so far.
Ummm, yes, we do.
We have that app and I never give my phone to anyone. Nobody asks me for it, not even the cops. They just note the details and take it with them.
Oh, and the cops don’t care about your photos or messages when all you’ve done was exceed speed limit by 10km/h.
In normal countries
Police in the US have admitted that traffic stops are just a way to search people and find bigger charges. Cops like that are absolutely nosing around your phone.
Lets not bring that capitalist dystopia to a discussion about functional countries.
Germany in the meantime: „leftist extremism is threatening the democratic system“ [quote from the constitution protection agency] while fascist crimes outnumber them 5 to 1. All that while the EU keeps trying to sneak chatcontrol by us through the backdoor, again and again.
I dont have that much hope for our world tbh.
TBF, Germany has been one of the countries often opposing Chatcontrol, so there’s at least that.
Do you have a link for the 5:1 fash vs commie crimes? Not doubting, just want to read more.
Check the site https://verfassungsschutz.de/
There you have sections leftist and fascist extremism and numbers to go along. Leftist crimes are around 4k, fascist around 23k iirc in the recent past (2023)
In the US they need probable cause. Just leave your window rolled up and give them the finger when they knock. They’ll puff and shout, but eventually they’ll let you through. Be sure to film it and make it clear you’re filming
They really won’t though. I’m going to believe the body cam footage of them breaking windows and hauling people out of cars over edited YouTube footage.
Pretty sure they’re not supposed to take your phone. The point of a digital document is that you don’t have to hand in anything. Scan the QR code and they can run as many background checks on the data they want. You’ll still have your phone.
Not supposed to != wont. Police regularily do things that they arent supposed to and as long as people naively consent by giving their phone they can get away with whatever they want i would think.
Then sue them. You have the right.
In my country you cant Sue, only complain. But you complain to the instance you complain about. Eg police is handling complaints about the police. Besides that. For most people sueing isnt something you just do
Of course you can. You said you live in Europe.
Unless you live in Russia or the Vatican, that means your country has signed the European Convention on Human Rights, of which article 8 commits it to respecting your privacy.
So, sure, you’re not going to bother suing. It’s not that important to you. But let’s go easy on the helplessness of “In my country you can’t do that”. Yes. You can do it.
Wonder why you are getting downvoted as this is a perfectly legitimate point. Are they just not in Europe or something?
Or who knows, they really could be in the Vativan, stranger things have happened. But I don’t know why they would mention those circumstances without qualification that they are special circumstances. Kind of burying the lede there.
Good luck lmao
