There's an App For That

Well even if it's as much as 1% wrong, that would drastically reduce the odds of a random thief being able to immediately unlock it and use it.

And by making the phone the key part of a login process - whether by app or as an SMS endpoint - if you do use it for all your accounts, then losing your phone will also lock all those accounts down as a matter of course. Meaning you don't have to rush to try and freeze/lock all your accounts in a mass panic that could take months waiting on telephone helplines.

I never quite understand why people who happily use the most basic locks and have easily broken windows suddenly become insistent on *perfect* security for things digital. You security only needs to be good enough to persuade scrotes to move to the next victim.

You can use a plastic card for purchases and cash withdrawals. Smaller than a phone, doesn't need charging, waterproof...

Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com wrote

And risk having your card details stolen and used by an illegal

ApplePay is completely secure, no one can reuse any details from a previous transaction to steal your money and you don't have to fart around with higher value transaction. just wave the phone at the terminal.

Irrelevant given I have the phone with me anyway

Irrelevant given that I have the phone anyway

Just like the best of the smartphones

That isn't entirely true. I was on a bus when a girl got on and explained to the driver that she couldn't pay the fare because her phone was out of battery. She waved a dead phone to the driver who was a bit mean, I thought. He just said No fare, no journey and told her to get off the bus. She did.

There are signs at various London underground stations saying the same.

Digital ID is going to be a whole lot of laughs for anyone without a smart phone.

Not that the Government cares.

Cheers

Dave R

Meanwhile last year I went to catch a bus and tried to use the "Swift" card to pay (this is Brum). The driver shrugged and said "reader isn't working" and just let me on.

Indy Jess John snipped-for-privacy@omitthisgooglemail.com wrote

Fraid so

I never go out without a charged battery

Rod Speed snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote

And I have the cards in my wallet as a backup anyway and do sometimes manage to leave the phone in the car and can use the card instead of going back to the car to get the phone anyway

How long before shops start requiring digital id before they sell you alcohol/ciggies/knives (&c.), even if you're 75?

So you will need a working, charged smart phone with the right version of the right app, and the right version of OS to run it, and probably an Internet connection.

Or go to a "corner shop" and buy under the counter vodka (which probably contains methanol).

I plan that, too, but there have been times when I've been caught out. Then I take a powerbank too.

It might be a situation which crops up far too often for the company to let it go. I wonder what essential tasks she had been doing in order to flatten the battery?

Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com wrote

You don't have to have a smartphone to do digital ID

Don't need a smartphone for that

Wrong, as always

Wrong with the methanol claim

charles snipped-for-privacy@candehope.me.uk> wrote

Some airlines ban powerbanks now

Sam Plusnet snipped-for-privacy@home.com wrote

Much more likely that she headed out with a flat battery or did that deliberately so she could travel for free

And interfaced to some banking software written in the 1970s.

My phone has serious problems recognising my fingerprint after a shower or doing some DIY sanding, painting or filling :)

Yes, that's where I am too, I'm very much a techie having been a software engineer since the early 1970s. I'm very much a Unix/Linux junkie too, I find MS Windows quite bewildering. I do have a smartphone (well, a smart tablet actually) but I use it as little as possible - as a phone, for SMS and where I'm forced to for other things (very few actually). For 2FA authorisations that insist on sending codes to a 'mobile' I have a 07xxx VOIP number that forwards texts to my E-Mail so I can copy/paste on screen on a 'proper' computer.