Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

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Also British, living across the bridge in Malmö, Sweden.

I really like the centralised system, it makes navigating society surprisingly easy when compared to say, Germany or the UK.

The difference is that I sort of trust the Swedish government, they've never really done anything to breach that trust - up to and including their handling of COVID (while controversial, they took the stance of individual liberty and a "collective responsibility" over mandatory top-down systems).

The UK in contrast has a much more heavy handed relationship with the population, up to and including incarcerating people for saying the phrase "we love bacon" at a construction site or typing the letter "n" on social media. It's a different context entirely.

Also, BankID, the central system is a definite weakness, but you can have a card/pin device that still works, and it does work on grapheneOS, though it will complain a bit if you don't have google services installed... which I find hilariously awful...

BankID is not a government thing, it's developed by a company founded by a bank consortium. Once upon a time the state aimed to build an public good in this space but bank representatives in the committee responsible managed to block it.

I was under the impression that it doesn't work under GrapheneOS, great news that it does. Other than that it shares some of the characteristics detailed above, refusing to run if it notices rooting and the like. Also no Linux support.

Edit: I agree that it has a convenience to it, but I strongly suspect it has a latent tyrannical potential and that future governments will exploit this to a further degree.

BankID also doesn't have Windows support. There's a defunct app that used smart-cards but it's fully deprecated and does not function.

But yes, it's owned by the banks not the state; if anything though this increases its weakness.

You can use BankID to identify with the tax agency, the public health services and police. (and more: this is just what I'm aware of) and there's an expectation that you have a BankID.

Also to identify with the banks, which was the original purpose, and many other services. It's somewhat expensive to run an integration but many customers and other users have a feeling that it is especially trustworthy as a method of authentication. One use I've had is with a file storage platform, they have an integration so that one can create shares against 'personal number' through BankID, which our customers in the public sector really liked. No need for them to juggle some account, they just share a 'personal number' and we were good to go.

The main competitor is Freja+, or just Freja, or Freja eID. It's particularly popular among immigrants, as I understand it, though not as commonly supported, especially in the private sector. There is also a semi-public electronic ID, "Skatteverkets ID-kort", issued by the same company that produces swedish passports, which is owned by the french defense corporation Thales.

This information is incorrect, I would know since Windows is the only platform I use BankID on. The app was updated just a few weeks ago as well, so fully deprecated is not how I would describe the situation.

The banks did not block it. The Swedish state did not want to spend 50-100 kr per citizen to distribute the secure element. They instead opted for aligning with the one set of institutions that already had somewhat good customer knowledge and could bear the cost, the banks. The incumbent telco (Telia) also tried but their system was even worse than bank id.

>incarcerating people for saying the phrase "we love bacon" at a construction site

You conveniently neglected to mention that it was the site where a _mosque_ was being constructed.

Changes things a bit.

You’re right, it’s totally acceptable to arrest someone for saying we love bacon at the vacant construction site of a potential mosque.

I’m sure the construction equipment was very unhappy.

You know exactly what you're doing, and so did the people agitating at the construction site.

They should have been arrested and taken away from the site as a courtesy to the public. You can't agitate on public property and cry foul when someone calls the cops.

>Changes things a bit.

No, I don't think it does.

This is why Britain is doomed.

How does it change anything? Being an asshole should not be a crime, that is way too fine a line to ever be a productive or worthwhile endeavor. Should we arrest someone for being like "Jesus is a level 16 Lich" or saying god is vengeful and bloodthirsty or joke about wearing mixed fabrics? Even just straight up saying "I hate you and hate your religious beliefs" shouldn't be a crime, there is nobody who would claim being liked or agreed with was a right.

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