This is the biggest issue I have with them. The only way this will work in modern society where the police can’t be trusted, is if the ID is accessible while the rest of the device is locked down.

And that’s really only possible if Apple and Google integrate that directly into the OS.

On iOS you can enable Guided Access and restrict what one can do, for example disable touch and lock it to an app, until you enter a Code. I imagine Android will have something similar.

This obviously doesn’t protect against electronic forensics, but it does protect against just opening different apps and searching through the phone manually.

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?

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.

Meanwhile, there’s me who just likes paper versions of this stuff because I like to be able to order a backup hard copy just in case something happens to the first one.

Edit: I’m a fucking dumbass. I was 100% aware they were talking about driver’s licenses, yet I was only referring to other vital documents like one’s birth certificate, and yet I didn’t make the connection in my brain. Apologies. :/

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.

No, se facessero cosi basterebbe che tu toccassi il bottone di blocco mentre glielo passi… A ripetere fino alla nausea.

No credo che la realtà sia differente: cosi ti invogliano ad avere l’app IO installata sul telefono… Semmai è quello il cavallo di troia.

That means if I used the digital version, they would had unlimited access to all my digital life. Photos, emails, chats, from decades ago.

Bare minimum, it would take a substantial amount of time and resources to harvest data from every phone of every driver passing through a particular checkpoint. Not that I’d ever recommend handing over my phone to a cop, but this kind of data transfer isn’t trivial. And its not clear what a street cop is going to do with 10 GB of accumulated vacation photos.

On the flip side, if you have an Automatic Backup feature on your phone, its going to a cloud computer somewhere. And that cloud computer is almost certainly compromised by the state digital security agency (and probably a number of foreign security agencies). At that point, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a physical id or a digital one, just knowing who you are is enough to tie you back to that digital archive.

But… again, what is it that front-line state agents are planning to do with all this data? That’s never been made particularly clear.