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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

> What's wrong with plastic national identity documents exactly, are they too heavy, too large

Yes, in fact they are. I can store my credit cards on my phone, but I still have to carry around my id cards and it's annoying. I have to take my phone and I'd rather not take anything else.

Having only one thing to lose (actually two including my car key) means that I might actually be able to keep track and hold onto it. It's a real problem for the absent minded.

Inconveniencing yourself due to some vague paranoia about government is for the tin foil hat crowd. Here in the real, rational world you need to carry your driver's licence and your id card to get things done.

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> credit cards on my phone

Take a physical card and a phone. Throw both on them on the ground and step on them, then let them lay there for two full days without connecting any cables to them. Then let me know which one will still work.

> Inconveniencing yourself due to some vague paranoia about government is for the tin foil hat crowd.

I'm equally irritated by an another extreme. Nowadays the bank branches are all hostesses selling credit deals. Cannot update personal details, refuse to deal with cash. On whatever non-credit request they almost snatch a mobile from my hand and force to install their bank app - "simply do it on your mobile". That's an inconvenience.

> Then let me know which one will still work.

Neither of them work, now what do you do? Within minutes I can buy a new phone or retrieve my backup phone and be up and running again. Replacing those cards would take me several weeks.

The cards are much more likely to survive such "disaster". Cash as well. They can lay without needing attention for months.

Take a physical card and a phone. Throw both on a busy street and let them stay there for a few days.

Come back and find them stolen.

Which one is easier to reacquire? You can just walk to any store, grab a phone and restore it from a cloud backup (or even a local one if you're so inclined).

To get a full-on ID is a huge hassle of reserving a time to the police station, them asking you weird tidbit questions about your life and parents to make sure you are you and then you'll get an ID in 1-3 weeks depending on how busy they are.

The type of card we're talking about here is not the American driver's license kind that every teenager seems to be able to forge according to the movies. This is a proper personal ID card with holograms and security measures.

> Which one is easier to reacquire? You can just walk to any store, grab a phone and restore it from a cloud backup (or even a local one if you're so inclined).

Losing the phone can equally lock you out of services for good. There are a lot of overzealous and badly implemented 2FA.

Yes, some shitty services don't allow 2FA transfers properly.

But most of it will work.

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