Item — HN Reader

With Digital passports and ID's the route to recovery starts to get hairy.

1. You need to verify yourself in person to get id or passport. You may need someone you know with you and have real interview.

3. But government gives only digital ID's so you need a phone to get it.

4. You can't buy a new phone or get a new SIM unless you can pay for it. You can't pay for it unless you have a phone and credit cards there. But neither bank does not recognize you without digital ID.

You need friends to bootstrap your life, but you are also in the middle of loneliness epidemic and have no friends, you parents have died. What do you do?

3 comments

You are overthinking it. The physical cards to pay and identify yourself are not going anywhere. In fact, the same places that have the digital id rolled out are the places where having one issued is mandatory and often times it's also mandatory to have one in case the police asks you to identify yourself.

When I wanted to get a replacement id to be issued in the year 2019, I had to book an appointment, get to the place and by the time I got the desk, the clerk had the thing open with my face photo from the last time I had a passport issued.

There are less fortunate people, who have the hardcopy id present, but no digital file exists for it (because it was issued before the digital files became a thing) and the paper trail leads to the occupied territory. That is usually months long story where secondary sources are involved and sometimes you have to find a friend who can confirm your identity.

So yeah. Make sure that the issuing CA doesn't get overrun by orcs before the replica thinks and you a hardcopy that is trustworthy enough.

Does any government in the world issue only digital IDs?

There‘s always possibility to have your travel passport as a backup (and when traveling abroad your domestic ID is suitable for recovering passport).

Not yet. Soon.

Any governments announced the plans already? I somehow missed that, but you say it like it's a decided thing.

Considering the actual physical id cards have an nfc chip which is used as the second factor for the digital id, this seems unlikely.

It's probably not a great idea to depend on friends or family to remotely bootstrap you out of a situation like that anyway, given deepfake impersonation scams.

I give friends a codeword before I go overseas (verbally but next time I'll write it on a note).

I learnt my lesson after online access to my bank was blocked for two weeks and I also lost a card two trips ago. Plus Chile blocked my phone IMEI (their beaurocracy fucked me up completely).

Western Union plus friends are a fantastic backup for when things go pear shaped.

For that kind of a thing you usually have to be present, for which deepfakes are not a threat yet.