I live in Sweden. I do not have a smart phone because I do not agree to the terms of service for the Apple Store or for Google Play, and have the luxury of not needing a smart phone for my life.
It is getting harder because Swish (person-to-person payments) and Mobil BankID are so widely used, while BankID on a computer is not. My gym recently switched from an RFID card to phone QR code to enter, and I get the idea the chain doesn't want to continue to support the handful of people like me without a phone.
A couple of days ago I learned about /e/OS and de-Googled phones. I like the privacy orientation, the EU location of company, and the fact that they haven't been fined 2 billion Euro for abusing monopoly power or found to violate EU privacy laws. I am willing to pay the 800 EUR for a Murena Fairphone 5 ... if I know it will work.
However, BankID says they do not support /e/, and even if it works now, they say all risk is on me if does not work in the future. That is not a risk I want to take. I figure it's easier stay with what I know works than to backtrack in the future.
This requires a political solution. I figure others are working on this. Are there any suggestions for who they are?
Additionally, what laws are in place to require support for those without a smart phone? My barber dropped debit card support in favor of Swish, but still accepts cash. But places are increasingly going cash-free, which may mean Swish-only in the future.
The status quo sucks. Political solutions are probably years off, and likely entail making Apple and Google behave rather than mandate open standards and allow alternatives. We are stuck with this duopoly for now. (At least desktop and laptop computers don't suffer from this.)
Alternative OSes on the smartphone are pointless if participating in digital society is your goal, because your friends and family will all use WhatsApp or something (this varies by country), and your bank will make banking with them harder if you don't use their app. Your government will increasingly rely on you owning a smartphone for digital access. In the Netherlands, digital access to healthcare records now by law requires that you either use the DigiD app on Android or IOS, or that you resort to begging for a paper copy; there will be nothing in between¹. When travelling, the apps for the larger public transport companies will have all the delays, re-routings, e-tickets, and other useful stuff. All of these require one of the two smartphone software stores, Apple's or Google's.
At least with GrapheneOS you can limit the Play Store to that handful of apps you must grudgingly use. The rest can be gotten from the, excellent, FOSS F-Droid store (like OsmAnd~, OpenCamera, and OrganicMaps), so you can minimize having to deal with the noise and chaos of the Play Store.
The Swish-thing sounds totally dystopic by the way. It's just by a quirk of fate that we don't have that trend in the Netherlands, where paying with a debit card is standard and smartphone payment systems basically just use that same system with a digital debit card. The war on cash is being waged here too though.
1: Use of DigiD, the Dutch digital identity system, without the app is not allowed for healthcare records, and existing healthcare systems are required to migrate to this. It is still allowed to login for other purposes like taxes using a password or SMS confirmation — for now.
I'm also kind of at a loss for how to work this situation, living without Swish and BankId is certainly possible, but it's incredibly impractical, and continuously getting harder. I think we should be allowed to choose whether to agree to contracts written up by private companies, but most people don't seem to care.
Because it is convenient, but you are not forced to use Mobilt BankID because pretty much every service will still work with desktop bankid or the physical device (säkerhetsdosa) your bank gives you.
> However, BankID says they do not support /e/, and even if it works now, they say all risk is on me if does not work in the future. That is not a risk I want to take. I figure it's easier stay with what I know works than to backtrack in the future.
Yes, not officially supported, but if it's just Android it will most likely work just fine.
If you moved here from another country then I can certainly say you picked the wrong country, everything is digital, there is no "privacy", and as you said cash is disappearing rapidly.
Personally I quite like the bankid and swish system, it just makes my life so much easier.
https://www.regeringen.se/rattsliga-dokument/statens-offentl...
In Finland, Danske Bank's Mobilepay app is widely used for p2p and online payments, but not so much for businesses, with the exception of tiny ones like pop-up stores. And I think they just raised their rates.
Online ID by banking app is pervasive, but doesn't require a smartphone if you bother your bank about it. If requested, Nordea gives you a Gemalto keypad and Danske Bank a small authenticator fob. I'm sure other banks have something similar, I'm just familiar with these two.
I agree that this is an important issue. Your smartphone is effectively your primary ID online now and can also be used to track you as you carry it around. And more and more commerce and official matters are now primarily handled online. Constant small steps towards a cashless society, with potential for control via CBDCs and/or social credit scores.
Does anyone know the advantages of only accepting Swish and no card? I thought EU interchange fees were pretty low and also thought EU merchants didn’t generally own/pay for the terminals as well.
Only accepting Swish and cash is kind of a middle finger to visitors. Maybe the barber doesn’t care, but I’m wondering if it’s just laziness or just happens to much cheaper.
# ls /data/data/com.termux/files/home/.shortcuts
BankID:disable
BankID:enable
...
# cat /data/data/com.termux/files/home/.shortcuts/BankID:disable
#!/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/bash
PACKAGE="com.bankid.bus"
PATH="/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin:$PATH"
command=$(echo "$0"|cut -d: -f2)
pman () {
action=$1
shift
for package in $@; do
sudo pm $action $package
done
}
case $command in
disable|enable)
pman $command $PACKAGE
;;
*)
echo "command '$command' not supported"
;;
esac
exit 0
A few years ago I wrote a Times Higher article called something like "Your future is not supported" about exclusion in schools.
"Not supported" is a seemingly innocuous but vicious expression. In almost all cases it has nothing to say about technical interoperability but is an opaque "layer 8" matter of "policy". Hence you are correct identifying it as a "political" problem.
I also wrote in Digital Vegan about how digital lifestyle choices, such as prioritising security, or choosing not to support convicted criminal monopolists and gangsters, rank equally with other kinds of identity and observances.
We no longer see signs in shops that say "No Blacks, No Irish" But today we have the equivalent with the language of "We do not support..."
> This requires a political solution.
Mandated service-level interoperability with the total elimination of all barriers to entry is the only way to go. It will happen. But it's a slow process. Obviously Europe is leading the way.
Lineage OS offers a Google-free Android operating system that also runs on a wide range of devices. https://lineageos.org/
Did you consider using a GNU/Linux phone (Librem 5 or Pinephone)? They run a desktop, libre OS, so you do not have to accept the duopoly's Terms and still you can scan QR codes whenever you want. It should be easier to argue with the government concerning other locked-to-duopoly services to run as web apps, and you wouldn't look like an anti-progress person to them. Sent from my Librem 5.
In Germany, I know they prefer physical cash the last time I checked. Maybe move there?