Swiss voters narrowly approve plan for electronic ID cards

General News
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TL;DR: Yesterday, Swiss voters narrowly approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic identity cards, with 50.4% voting yes.

I didn’t even know this was on the ballot in Switzerland. I learned about it on Twitter from Andy Yen, Proton’s CEO.

TWITTER_Andy Yen_Switzerland e-ID
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This is apparently the 2nd time that they vote for it. It was first proposed in 2021, and Swiss voters rejected it. Andy was pointing out in a tweet that governments are going to keep proposing digital ID laws, even after they rejected, until they pass. They are relentless.

This looks like the official government page explaining how Swiss digital IDs will work.

…the e-ID is designed to meet the highest standards of security, data protection, and trustworthiness.

I’m against digital IDs overall, but until I see it being implemented with zero knowledge proof technology, I will never buy such a claim.

To me, this signals that we are not doing enough to reach people and shock their conscience. I guess the silver lining is that for now it’s voluntary, but for how long?
There is so much work to do!

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more countries doing this sh*t are you kidding me

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I saw a comment online that perfectly encapsulates the issue with non-mandatory digital ID.
It said, don’t worry, it won’t be mandatory. Just indispensable.

If national and digital IDs are not mandatory but increasingly required for services you want to use, don’t they become in effect mandatory?

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thats basically like saying you dont need a phone or a house because its “not mandatory, just indispensable”

(for clarifications this is comparing with what they are doing not that the “digital id” is as important as a house or phone (or even close to that))

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I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at. Could you please elaborate?

I’m saying that if something is not mandatory, but governments and businesses increasingly demand it to get access to things that didn’t require it before, then people are going to feel like it’s mandatory, even if it technically isn’t.

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yes and eventually you will need that id for everything even though its not really important and neccesary and the only reason you would need that is because the government wants surveillance and stuff which ended up causing everything to need it

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Well at least the e-ID will be open-source and regularly audited by independent companies. There will be a centralized server but it will only store non-sensitive information such as validity of keys, how many keys were created per user, etc. so the sensitive tasks will be decentralized. The users will need to request a new e-ID each time they change their smartphone. In addition, using an e-ID to prove your identity will only expose the necessary informations. For instance, your address won’t be exposed if an organization only need to know your gender or age. Your exact age wouldn’t be exposed. Only the fact that you have the age required.

Other unique identifiers will be kept secret.

The state won’t know when and who shows an e-ID.

So yeah. Maybe not ideal but could be much worse

Source Bar_Erlaeuterungen_September_2025_fr.pdf (842.7 KB)

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Sounds like an improved version of EU one, which already passed last year

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Furthermore, no one other than the authentication system — such as a store clerk — should need to access raw data, such as age and gender. All they need to know is whether the imposed conditions are met.

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If these digital id’s are encrypted and everything is processed on the user’s device, how is it different from a physical id, like a driver’s license, that you carry in your wallet?

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No databases. No databreach possible with a physical ID.

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I actually think it’s safer since every now and then you need to upload a scan of your ID to a service that you want to use or do an online verification video that gets saved. That information is gonna be out there and it’s probably gonna be unencrypted on a server of a business where a lot of people working there have access to it. So I very much prefer being the one in charge of my e-ID like I am with my physical ID.

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If a service asks me to upload a scan of my ID to use the service, I’m not using that service.

Hopefully, people will do the same to boycott such BS requirements.

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So you don’t have a bank account? Because in Europe banks normally scan your ID/passport if you want to open one.

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Yes, it is requirement by law. In the last some years I did this (scanned ID and face) many times to different companies. With digital ID its safer :white_check_mark: if this would be used, or would they continue their old systems.

Maybe he opened a bank account in person.

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I didn’t have to open a bank account for awhile, but if I had to, I would go in person.

Also, jurisdictions are not the same everywhere.

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Personally I opened bank accounts in 2 different european countries (one of them was Switzerland) and even though I opened it in person they scanned my ID.

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There is also a large innovation funding program for Digital IDs by EU Innovators – NGI Sargasso - for collaboration between EU, Canada and USA, where it was recently possible to apply for funding.

Similar like wonderful NLNet ( NLnet; All projects ) program for open source projects, but this one https://ngisargasso.eu/ is for digital IDs and things like this, and program logo is a fingerprint… Program is run by 5 other organizations and is running for a few years.

They funded around 60 ideas so far, this is projects list:

Are these projects for the better, or for worse?

Looking through the projects I see a lot of buzzwords: AI, Blockchain, Quantum, so a lot of these projects will fail… And at the center stage is “Digital ID” as a great “innovation”.

Some examples:

  • “Interoperable identity and credential solutions bridging EU and North America”
  • “Blockchain-based Decentralized and Self-Sovereign Identities”
  • “Facilitate Verifiable Credentials Presentation across borders”
  • “Hybrid Post-Quantum Cryptography Self-Sovereign Identity Stack”
  • “Decentralized Electronic Signature using Blockchain based Digital Identity”
  • “EBSI and Verifiable Credentialing in Canada.”
  • “Democratizing Decentralized Digital Identity through Cloud agents”
  • “Decentralized Digital Identity Profile”
  • etc

Some better sounding examples:

  • “Decentralized Digital Sovereign Identity and Voting System using Blockchain Technology” (at least interesting to explore)
  • “Empower eDemocracy For Peace” (at least sounds nice)
  • “Zero-Knowledge Authentication with Compromise Detection”
  • “Secure and Efficient Data Spaces”
  • “Towards a Standard Interface for Differential Privacy Systems with Database Interoperability”
  • “Enhancing Trusted Transatlantic Data Processing and Storage with Fully Homomorphic Encryption”
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Pretty much all banks require that you present your ID to open a bank account, and yes, they make a copy of it. That being said, I 1000% agree with you that it is better for privacy to physically go to the bank to open a bank account than having to upload a copy of your ID from home.

Even if in both cases they copy your ID, there is still a difference. When you go to the bank, a real person is copying your ID. You can get their name and contact info, and make a note of when your ID was copied. Many businesses, including banks, are becoming more and more faceless.

What I find extremely frustrating is that now, more and more banks require that you scan your face in order to use their app. I just got a new phone and installed my bank’s app on it. Even though I have a username and password, and fingerprint ID, they would not let me set up my bank account unless I allow them to scan my face.

I went to the bank to complain about this, and they said I had no choice but to comply. We have no idea how this mechanism works, but I suspect that the bank keeps a record of every time I scan my face. I suspect that they don’t delete it.

I have another bank that is a neo bank, meaning they don’t exist physically. They need to scan my face every time I want to change a security setting. Not only that, they require that I record a video and repeat certain words that they show me. I have little doubt that they keep those recordings.

Suppose you scan your face with your bank’s app 10 times a year. You do it for 10 years. Do you really think that if your bank has to verify your identity in 2035, they won’t compare the latest recording of your face to the ones from the last 10 years? I don’t buy it either.

If my face scan and recording is only compared to the copy of my ID that the bank has, it would be one thing, but I suspect that is not the case.

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UPDATE: Swiss digital ID law may get cancelled and possibly be up for a revote

TL;DR:

The referendum committee that opposed the Swiss e-ID wants the vote to be annulled.

[…] referendum committee claims the vote was unduly influenced by “illicit interference by state-controlled Swisscom.” Swisscom is a private company but it is majority-owned by the Confederation (the Swiss state) with such companies expected to be bound by political neutrality, and not influencing the democratic process.

CONTEXT:

Swiss citizens voted in favor of a government move to introduce a digital ID in a narrow referendum result, with 50.39 percent of voters in support.

In its appeal, the referendum committee against the digital identity law asserts that Swisscom donated 30,000 Swiss Francs (US$37,780) to a pro-eID committee and asked a senior executive to promote the project publicly. Additionally, it claims Switzerland’s umbrella organization for digitalization, the Digitalswitzerland Foundation, which has Swisscom’s CEO sitting on its board, donated CHF 150,000 ($188,925) to the pro-eID committee.

The referendum committee believes Swisscom’s involvements are in contravention of the freedom to vote, which is backed by the federal constitution, and further claims the financial assistance was “concealed.”

THERE’S HOPE

Such voting repeats are rare and hinge on the result being very close and the appeal needing to be filed quickly. Both of these conditions are satisfied in this case, but the contravention must also be consequential enough to have influenced citizens to vote in a certain way.

Thank you to @ Janell1991 from Tech Lore for alerting me.

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