EU Asks Citizens About Digital Passports

Please take a few minutes and let them know what you think

Dear readers, today, I’m asking you to help me out a bit and voice your opinion about the envisaged introduction of digital passports in the Schengen area.

EDIT: further background added:

How the EU-US 'Security Cooperation' Works

So far, little is known beyond the usual suspects of EU critics, hence this posting.

Here’s a bit of background information, courtesy of friend-of-these-pages Thomas Oysmüller (via TKP.at):

The EU Commission is pushing, the plan has long been rolled out and now it is to be implemented: a digital identity for every EU citizen. The classic passport must of course be digitised for this.

Digitisation wave

The Commission argues this again in the already familiar ‘Orwellian double-speak’: since the ‘Corona pandemic’, citizens would expect ‘the use of contactless technologies as a basic prerequisite for safe and smooth travel’. A radical twisting of reality: the EU had introduced the ‘Green Passport’, the Covid certificate as a new travel restriction—without any democratic deliberation—and then argued that the new restriction would now facilitate travel. Now the Commission goes a step further and claims that citizens would even ‘expect’ digital clearance to continue.

The digitisation of the passport would allegedly simplify travel (especially within the Schengen area, where there should really be no more border controls at all) and ‘increase the attractiveness of the EU’. Well, the EU is indeed very unattractive among many citizens. The future border controls are not likely to become more pleasant. Because as soon as the passport is digitised, the ‘use of biometric solutions’ is to be resorted to.

As I said, little is known about the opportunity of citizens to weigh in. Note that this applies to EU and non-EU citizens.

If you wish to have your say, please follow this link (many languages are available, this link will take you to the English version). Some feedback—overwhelmingly negative—is published, but do spread the word.

Here’s a direct link to the questionnaire.

Note that the questions are very suggestive and far removed from objective.

Here are my responses to the numbered questions:

10: what’s your general take on digital ID?

The current system, developed over decades, works fairly well, and there is no need to change it, in particular as there are few assurances that personal data will not be abused, shared with third parties and the like

12: would having such digital ID facilitate border controls?

There is precious little evidence that electronic or digital records simplify or even reduce red tape; do check out the negative experiences with electronic health records, e.g., in the US, which have proven useless in precisely this regard

13: would it be useful to have such digital ID for dealing with national bureaucracy?

I live in Norway where a digital ID (BankID) exists; one has to prove one's ID with a standard "analogue" passport to obtain it, which allows people to do just what is outlined--doing so resulted, in effect, in an additional layer of administrative hassle, to say nothing about the electronic infrastructure that is required to actually implement this

15: are there advantages?

Yes, for businesses and third parties that obtain such data, but there are no true benefits for "ordinary" citizens

18: would you use such a digital passport?

It is not necessary. I've been living abroad since 2010 in three different countries on two continents—having such ‘digital passports’ is, frankly, simply not necessary; there are no benefits over ‘analogue’ passports, but there exists a lot of concerns (privacy, data sharing, AI-enhanced discrimination, etc.) and costs for the build-up of the required infrastructure

20: how would you like to learn about privacy and data protection (either by getting a link or a text outlining where the data is going)?

What is missing from both options is the need to declare unequivocally where the data is going beyond the border crossing, incl. the option to opt-out of that data sharing

22: any other problems?

This is a costly and unnecessary endeavour. It is necessary that analogue and non-digital options remain the primary method due to their much harder-to-abuse characteristics

Here’s a direct link to the questionnaire. Please have your say.