this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
390 points (92.6% liked)

Privacy

32517 readers
339 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] skarn@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 3 points 3 weeks ago

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)