Comment on Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says
Aceticon@lemmy.world 7 months agoSomehow the rest of Europe doesn’t need to get people’s IDs when SIM cards are sold “for basic protection of its citizens and for terrorism prevention”.
Also from what I’ve seen in Britain, having government entitites unable to properly cooperate AND having a disproportionatly high level of civil society surveillance are not at all incompatible.
GiddyGap@lemm.ee 7 months ago
You’re not right about the rest of Europe not needing ID for a SIM. In Denmark, you need ID. In Sweden, you need ID. In Norway, you need ID. I’m sure you need in many other countries as well.
In the US, you also need an ID to open an account.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Right, I’ll grant you that - can only really speak for countries were I actually bought SIMs.
I know for sure you don’t need an ID in Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, the UK and Canada, or at least you didn’t back when I did bought a SIM card over there.
Funny enough, the countries you listed (except Germany) are ones were somebody else was pointing out that people trust the authorities and are more ameanable to the authorities having lots of information about them.
Personally I was quite shocked that Germany, the country which had both Nazism and in some parts Communism, and were one would expect people to shy-away from anything with even the slightest wiff of Gestapo/Stasi to it, very explicit and obvious measures to make sure the authorities knew who had what mobile phone line were in place and accepted by the population.
GiddyGap@lemm.ee 7 months ago
In Germany, it’s an anti-terrorist precaution. Criminals love anonymous prepaid SIMs.
You do need ID in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain now. I think it’s the same in most EU countries. Same thing. Anti-terrorism.
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Wouldn’t they solve this by adding a level of indirection? Like offering to pay some schlub cash with a nice margin to buy several prepaids for them?
Aceticon@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I looked around for The Netherlands and I found no such requirement for Pre-paid SIM cards.
Are you confusing the ones with a contract where naturally they want to make sure you are who you say you are with it being a general rule? Can you point me at the source of that information (in Dutch would be fine, even in German I can probably read it)?