[ipatec]

We're far from that. The gap between countries is big. Just to mention Belgium's example despite having an eID, you can't even change your address online in most communes and you need to physically present yourself and demand the address to be changed. About half of the EU countries don't have eIDs. Also we're talking of less than 5% of EU population (some figures I've seen are close to 3%) working in a different EU country than their own. do we really need to implement such a system that comes with major risks? given that it benefits such a small percentage of people?

[toyg]

The point is not just what is there today, but what we want for tomorrow.

In the US, it's normal for people to move to a different state to attend university, and then from there often to a different state again. Something like 1% to 2% move each year to a different state [0], which means in 10 years more than 10% of people will have done that. Some cross state borders multiple times in their lives. This is what we want to achieve, because it fuels economic growth and removes obstacles to happiness. (It's also, in a way, a restoration of what we had pre-Nation-State, when people were basically free to settle anywhere they wanted; but that's beside the point). Making the process of moving across the continent as smooth as possible is a Good Thing.

I would also move a point on terminology:

> working in a different EU country than their own

People don't own countries, they are born into them. (This is not just a pedantic remark - I think it's important that we move on from XIX-century nationalistic terminology if we want to achieve progress.)

[0] https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/how-often-and-why-ameri...

[pjerem]

> In the US, it's normal for people to move to a different state to attend university, and then from there often to a different state again.

European Union is not a federal government like the USA but a union of independent countries.

In Europe it’s normal to live your entire life in the country you were born. Of course you can move wherever you want whenever you want but it’s never needed because there is 99% odds that your state have what you need (specific university, companies offices …)

Since Europe have really poor democratic control and power structure as of today, we are far from a federal Europe.

Even European policies like RGPD are always enforced locally at country level, there is no such thing as European government.

[Jiocus]

> Since Europe have really poor democratic control and power structure as of today, we are far from a federal Europe.

I don't agree, partly because I don't share your view that democratic control and structure is "poor". Mainly because trying to flip the tables and redefine the goal and aspirations of the EU is a bit far fetched, as it doesn't even include becoming a federal Europe.

> Even European policies like RGPD are always enforced locally at country level, there is no such thing as European government.

That is by design, not a mistake.

[pjerem]

You read my post like a criticism of EU, which it isnt

> I don't agree, partly because I don't share your view that democratic control and structure is "poor".

Current democratic control is mostly sufficient for what the EU is today : a union of independent countries. But this control is not enough at all if we wanted the EU to become a government with executive power.

> That is by design, not a mistake.

I never implied it was a mistake, neither that it was a bad thing.

[Jiocus]

Thanks for clarifying! My criticism was unwarranted.

[toyg]

1) The fact that we are far from a federal government doesn't mean we'll always be such.

2) I think you overestimate the involvement of the US federal government in law-enforcement across the country. A lot of (most?) laws are actually passed and enforced at state level, with the FBI only getting involved in the worst situations or where cross-state cooperation is necessary. California alone has tons of gdpr-like laws that it sets and enforces independently. There is an entire US political culture based around "state rights" that constantly pushes for having a looser federal structure that looks very much like what the EU is today.

3) it's not like they don't have universities in Minnesota or Nebraska, a lot of people sticks around where they were born. The difference is that the ones who don't, find it easy enough to relocate. This helps creating world-beating industrial districts like Hollywood, SF, Houston, New York, etc etc - because they can attract the best of the best among 400m people.

100 years ago people rarely moved from a village. 50 years ago they rarely moved from a city. Now they rarely move from a country. See where it's going?

[pjerem]

> 1) The fact that we are far from a federal government doesn't mean we'll always be such.

Maybe, and I'm not even against the idea. But it would have nothing to do with European Union (the current entity)

> 2) [...]

I'm not an US expert, and I mostly have the same picture as you. I don't see what you are trying to prove ?

> 3) [...]

I never said that one system was better than the other, just that they are different with different strengths and different weakness but that migrating from one to the other is extremely difficult and probably require creating new entities. I totally can imagine an European Federation but I don't see it being the same entity as the European Union.

[toyg]

> But it would have nothing to do with European Union (the current entity

We are going into hypotheticals here. I am pretty convinced you are wrong, but only time will tell.

> I don't see what you are trying to prove ?

It was mentioned that the EU "cannot even enforce <some law>", but the reality is that the US federal government, that model of global cohesive superpower, more often than not cannot do that either. Do we go around saying the US government cannot do anything right, because coordinating 50 states is impossible? No, of course they can do some stuff right. Same for the EU. Already the fact that there is one "supreme tribunal" across the continent is quite remarkable, as well as a single currency for most of the Union, or a single arrest warrant, etc etc. Things move slowly but they do move, and if enough people keep pushing for a united Europe, sooner or later we'll get there.

[Nexxius]

As a Texan (yes, we have state loyalty more so than country) I would suggest taking a low and slow approach to unifying Europe under one federal entity. It took a few contentious iterations before the United American States became the United States of America and then a bloody war to fix absolute power with the central/federal government over states rights. Even today political tensions threaten to re-map state boundaries or outright dissolve the union.

[foldr]

>People don't own countries, they are born into them. (This is not just a pedantic remark

It doesn't really succeed as a pedantic remark, because 'their own' doesn't denote ownership. For example, here is a sentence in a BBC news article that I found by googling:

"Even his own boss said Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter at the heart of the Hutton Inquiry, 'paints in primary colours rather than something more subtle'".

This sentence does not suggest that Andrew Gilligan owns his boss.

[adrianN]

> Something like 1% to 2% move each year to a different state [0], which means in 10 years more than 10% of people will have done that

Or it's always the same people who move a lot.

[mschuster91]

> Some cross state borders multiple times in their lives. This is what we want to achieve, because it fuels economic growth and removes obstacles to happiness.

On the other hand, people are forced to uproot and discard their entire social support network - family, friends and others - multiple times in their lives. This does not only negatively impact happiness, but also has severe side effects and associated costs!

This can range from not having a place to crash (or a source to borrow money from) when getting priced out of a home or losing your job, but also having to waste money on childcare, family meetings / events being more expensive because people are spread all over the country and similar problems. And for the elderly, they are dumped in care homes with substandard but expensive care instead of being around their families in their final days. Call me old-fashioned but I find this disgusting.

And I didn't even touch the topic if this uprooting of people is detrimental to their mental health, especially for children - I would not be surprised if the rise of depression and other MH disorders can be linked to being constantly on the move in childhood!

The worst net negative for society as a whole is that enforcing mobility creates a massive concentration of people in urban areas (where rents explode and traffic becomes untenable) on one side and "left behind" rural areas on the other side where population erosion only leads to bitterness and erosion of trust in democracy itself, and any investment in infrastructure or life quality becomes prohibitively expensive.

We have seen the culmination of decades of neoliberalism in the rise of nationalist demagogues across democracies worldwide. We as humanity need to take a step back, cool down and ask ourselves if what we are doing is actually positive for society.

[toyg]

Being an EU migrant myself, I know the impact of all this very well. Every day I wake up hoping my parents are still healthy, because caring for them will soon be a massive problem. And still, chances are that sticking around my hometown, as beautiful as it is, would have doomed me to a much worse life - and not because it's been "left behind" in any way, but because I simply don't match the culture in very significant ways.

Obviously nobody should be forced to move. Nobody is "enforcing mobility" in Europe; they did in the past though, when Mussolini literally sold Italian labourers to half the planet and the UK shipped convicts to the colonies. The good ol' times often weren't that good. What we need is to provide all the freedom we can, and let people look for happiness wherever they see fit.

[mschuster91]

> and not because it's been "left behind" in any way, but because I simply don't match the culture in very significant ways.

I'm simply going to assume on a stretch you're either on the LGBT+ spectrum or socially progressive, please forgive me if I'm wrong.

I disagree with you on the "not left behind" part: the "rural flight" aka all young people fleeing to urban areas as soon as they possibly can has made rural areas "left behind" socially, because the ones who stay behind objectively see that the young people are fleeing, but instead of placing the blame on politicians who did jack shit to keep rural areas liveable (e.g. by providing high speed internet and public transport), many of them resort to blaming "the gays" for "corrupting their children" and similar - which in turn is even more incentive for those few youth that remain to flee. It's a vicious circle.

[toyg]

I don't match the stereotype (I just moved from a culture that ruthlessly exploits the honest to one that at least lets them live a tranquil life), but I do agree that phenomena like that do exist.

Something like 40% of my high-school classmates have moved to another city or country, for one reason or another, and the ones who've remained seem to have become somewhat hyper-localistic, almost as a reflex or justification for not doing the same.

I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think forcing me or others to stick around would have made much of a difference beyond generating even more social resentment.

[eecc]

Well since it's a greenfield project for many countries it might make sense to build a continent-wide solution rather than let each country cobble together their own incompatible platform?

Besides, it's not only for intra-EU Digital Nomads but also for business operations beyond national borders; reducing the overhead improves accessibility from the less developed countries to richer markets.

[Jiocus]

> We're far from that. The gap between countries is big. Just to mention Belgium's example despite having an eID, you can't even change your address online in most communes and you need to physically present yourself and demand the address to be changed.

I see. Here in Finland electronic services has been widely implemented and very successfully so. I haven't been required to show up in person for anything in quite some time (altough I sometimes have). Government bodies are also very keen to inform about and push for the e-services available. Especially in these pandemic times, which I believe further incented the long tail - if there was one - to catch up and offer self-service online.

I belive Sweden is as far if not further than Finland, but I wouldn't know(!) because the ID and eID was a hassle I didn't cope with the last time I lived there ;) Thing were fine anyway, "because EU, Nordics".

[dariosalvi78]

In Sweden the digitalisation of services is quite advanced, although there are still many things that you need to do via post. I cannot compare with Finland, but I can compare with Spain and the UK where I have lived and worked and probably Sweden is one or two steps ahead. The only gotcha is that you need to be inside the system and have an active BankId, otherwise you're a pariah.

[lowdose]

Finland is also the only country that made rational choices in the setup of frequency auctions. Maybe better infrastructure delivers superior digital implementation of government structure because actual equal access to internet speed is guaranteed.

[jkukul]

> Also we're talking of less than 5% of EU population

I agree, at first glance it seems like the global approach is an overkill.

I think it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem though.

Is the global eID/eWallet an overkill, because we're already at the peak of the within-EU movement of people?

Or, is the burden of switching countries too big and this prevents people from freely moving within the Union when looking for opportunities?

IMO it's the latter.

[ipatec]

I agree the burden of switching countries is too big. But as a share of that burden the beaurocracy of getting a new residence would be somewhere at the bottom. The biggest burden of switching to a new country within the EU would be language, culture (there's a lot of things in common but as many differences too) and family/friends. I did change country 2x and my biggest worry has always been first securing a new job. I never cared about the beaurocracy because I knew it will be sorted out sooner or later once I move.

[martimarkov]

For me has always been the admin part. I don’t care particularly about the job and culture. I’m actually excited to try something new. It’s just a lot of documents to move and I’m bad at using paper. :D

[bojan]

How many people in Belgium used an eID, or thought it's a good idea, in the first year? Were there privacy concerns, etc? I assume people were asking the same things as you are now.

In the Netherlands you can change your address in every municipality, using our DigiD system. Nowadays you can also use the European system to log in.

And don't forget, while 3% may sound insignificant, it is still over 13 million people.

[sammorrowdrums]

The risks are significant, but it doesn't logically follow that by removing a barrier you are only helping the people that were already OK with getting over the barrier. I think the issue is that there are still a lot of hurdles that regarding residence, tax and local services that will need to become easier still for this to have a large impact. Language and local friends / family connections are still significant barriers, but I guess the EU could eventually resolve most other issues. A big one would be making tax returns for partial years in different countries easier, which in fairness having an EU wide eID does help with. Requiring and allowing accounts to offer full EU coverage would also probably help. The friction needs to be below tolerable levels for enough people to see the full benefit manifest.

As anecdata if I had to get VISA and only temporary right to remain I would probably have not moved to Netherlands, and it has genuinely stopped me considering moving to America.

As a British / Irish citizen I'm acutely aware that there are now new barriers to non-eu British citizens, and that'll impact how many people move around Europe from UK. Especially people who cannot afford to navigate the additional costs and bureaucracy, or who are scared of risking family security with temporary stays etc.

[mlok]

I would say that if you change a physical address it makes sense to be there in person to prove it. This could be seen as a kind of security/verification feature.

[telesilla]

Some countries confirm it by sending a document to the address and you must respond with the provided code. Seems more secure than being present in an office?

[thequux]

Belgium checks this by sending a police officer to your address at a time you're likely to be home (~7:00 on a weekday evening, Saturday morning, or the like), regardless of whether you changed your address at town hall or online. The only reason more places don't introduce such features is that it's all done on the municipal level and not all municipalities have the same priorities.

[ClumsyPilot]

I was recently in person to confirm my address in UK and they made a typo and placed me on an address that doesn't exist

[tchalla]

> Just to mention Belgium's example despite having an eID, you can't even change your address online in most communes and you need to physically present yourself and demand the address to be changed.

I don't see why this should be done online. The registration/change of address requires a proof. Many services like bank accounts, pensions, tv tax etc. are linked to one's registration address. A one time physical presence (or a similar variant) is a reasonable tradeoff between verification and convenience. You create a meaningful hurdle and make people liable for their statements. Convenience is not the only metric to decide what should be done online.

[JW_00000]

In Belgium changing your official address is actually a three-step process:

1. You notify your new local council of the change of address.

2. A police officer visits your new home to check whether you actually live there.

3. Your official address is updated in the government's records and on the ID card.

Step 2 takes place in your home; step 3 requires you to physically go to the town hall because the information on the eID card needs to be updated. But step 1 should be doable online but isn't in every municipality. However, I think this is more a problem of every municipality doing this on their own rather than using a shared system. Also, the frustrating part is not that you need to go to the town hall, but that it has very limited and inconvenient opening hours and (in larger places) often long waiting times.

[Mauricebranagh]

Sounds like make work for cops to me.

[rpastuszak]

I agree, but you have to start somewhere though. As much as fixing the issue you mentioned would make eIDs more useful, having eIDs in the first place would give us more reasons to tackle this and similar problems.

[b112]

Why do you have to start somewhere? Why is it a requirement to have eID?

Because we can is not a reason. This is the same reason we have global warming. We can build gas burning cars, so we should, without thinking of the consequences.

Of what use is eID, when no one can secure anything network connected? When all eID will be subverted, stolen, misused, making the same useless? And meanwhile, causing endless misery for those experiencing the loss of privacy, the consequences of identity theft, abuse by foreign powers, and more.

On top of this, I absolutely don't need it easier for a state to track me. Now every time I show my eID, the state gets pinged to validate it?

No thanks!

[ClumsyPilot]

"This is the same reason we have global warming"

Thats escalated quickly...

"he loss of privacy, the consequences of identity theft, abuse"

You are like 15 years late to the party, you can easilly buy/scrape/find enough information to get credutcards in sone poor sucker's name from the facebook and experian data leaks.

[NicoJuicy]

This will change very soon depending on the region.

Burgerprofiel has recently gone live ( because of Covid) after a long beta.

It was used for your "vaccinatie aanvraag".

Wallonia and Brussels are long from ready.

[b112]

And there you have it ; risks. No one on the planet has been able to ever, and I mean ever, lock down data when connected to the internet, from hacking.

Ever.

If you have not been hacked when specifically targeted, it only means your data is not worth the cost/profit. Pre-zero days abound, firewalls will be bypassed, and worst?

People will be bribed, coerced, scammed, tricked.

There are only two options:

1.. Absolutely zero Internet access for anyone working on said computers. No mobile phones allowed in the building, no machine with internet access in the building, faraday cage around the entire building, etc...

Yes, no email.

Nothing.

2. Paper

And of course, the above with physical access controls, and scans / searches.

The real fix for all identity theft, is to make it a crime, and a serious one, including mandatory jail time for all CxO level execs (on the premise of gross negligence) for obtaining any data on individuals via illicit means.

And that has to be world wide.