this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)
Privacy
31247 readers
658 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
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
In Germany you need to do most things in person, by fax, and fill out paper forms.
In Sweden for example, you do everything online. Booking appointments, renewing subscriptions, insurance claims, getting test driving permits, renting homes.
You pretty much need this software called BankID, owned by the banks, which is used to verify your identity. It’s used literally everywhere.
If I need to pick up a parcel at the local post office, I’ll use the PostNord app to pull up a QR code and validate myself via BankID, then I scan the code at the robot which then fetches the parcel for me.
Cash isn’t really dying out here, it’s pretty much dead. Grocery stores still take cash but plenty of businesses don’t. Buses in my town stopped taking cash all over a decade ago. Even the bakery refuses cash. It’s viewed as a safety thing; if the bakery gets robbed what are they going to take? The massive appliances? Flour?
Doing bureaucracy online versus in person is just a convenience thing, German government agencies still enter your data into computer systems, they just have a massively convoluted process for it. I expect no privacy in those cases anyways.
But bankID does seem scary. A single point of failure for basically everything and centralized tracking of every transaction.
It's not a convenience thing, it's because the government fucked up the whole online thing. They started too late, they constantly miss the goals they set themselves, nobody seems to want to push things forward. It's a bit frustrating. On the other hand, yeah privacy. If you ignore that the Finanzamt can check your bank account whenever they want without you being notified about it (yes, they need a reason, still...) and Krankenkassen knowing almost everything about your health because they get the bills from your doctor.