Smartphones and face recognition are being combined to create new digital travel documents. The paper passport’s days are numbered—despite new privacy risks.
Agreed. And even if there are devices plugged in and always running and (miraculously) always functional, what do you do in a disaster situation where all infrastructure is knocked out? That is the exact time you’d want to make sure there are no impediments to foreign support being able to enter the country. But with nothing physical to fall back on for identification, what would you do?
I’m all for digitizing currency and the like, I really never carry cash anymore. But ID documents are still crucial to have physical copies of, and the passport remains the only internationally recognized standard.
I am very much against digitizing currency as well. Not every place has connectivity, financial apps might have a problem running on custom ROMs like Graphene (which would probably be getting worse now), and most importantly - having ALL your transactions surveilled and agregated makes one uneasy.
I say don’t worry. There’s no way they will be able to change this system anytime soon. Even if airports are able to accommodate the change, it will be extremely hard for all borders and other checkpoints to do the same. We know how slow progress is for stuff like this. If this is implemented, it will not mean passports won’t still be required for a long time. My guess is a minimum of 20 years at the least before seeing any change.
Agreed. And even if there are devices plugged in and always running and (miraculously) always functional, what do you do in a disaster situation where all infrastructure is knocked out? That is the exact time you’d want to make sure there are no impediments to foreign support being able to enter the country. But with nothing physical to fall back on for identification, what would you do?
I’m all for digitizing currency and the like, I really never carry cash anymore. But ID documents are still crucial to have physical copies of, and the passport remains the only internationally recognized standard.
I am very much against digitizing currency as well. Not every place has connectivity, financial apps might have a problem running on custom ROMs like Graphene (which would probably be getting worse now), and most importantly - having ALL your transactions surveilled and agregated makes one uneasy.
I say don’t worry. There’s no way they will be able to change this system anytime soon. Even if airports are able to accommodate the change, it will be extremely hard for all borders and other checkpoints to do the same. We know how slow progress is for stuff like this. If this is implemented, it will not mean passports won’t still be required for a long time. My guess is a minimum of 20 years at the least before seeing any change.