We are not talking about old Nokia phones, but perfectly modern phones like those with GrapheneOS, that can be run on cutting-edge hardware, with a secure enclave, does not use Google Play Services by default, and has a high probability of being more secure than iPhone or any Android phone.

It is exactly the kind of alternative that European countries should embrace to become less dependent on US tech.

I am not sure if you are European, but why people are still supporting the GMS Android/iOS duopoly after the US revoked the Google accounts, Office 365 accounts, credit cards, Amazon accounts, etc. of ICC judges is beyond me. Supporting only iOS/Google GMS Android in a government app basically gives the US all the means to blackmail you and/or disrupt your digital infrastructure.

It seems there are still people working for European governments (including developers) who seem to have missed 2025 and the first few months 2026?

We are repeating the same mistakes as depending on Russian oil/gas again.

Nah, I'm that one idiot who uses alternative open software and just accepts when services aren't offered to me. The older I get, the easier it feels to not give a fuck anymore.

Can't buy any single fare public transport tickets online here in Stuttgart? Sure, I'll use the DeutschlandTicket NFC card. Can't view the EPA? Fine then I don't. Can't pay with Wero? Fine, I don't actually need to use shops that don't offer SEPA Vorkasse or Lastschrift (only without a dodgy "identity verification" fintech startup of course.

Then maybe it shouldn't be done? What??

Yeah, let's burn the witches who care about privacy! Jokes aside, in a democracy, the systems must be designed so that everyone can participate. We manage to do it with voting, with income tax declaration, but for some strange reason, with ID we want to achieve 1984 nirvana, and crush the voices who tell us that the surveilance society we are building is just setting us up for the next Hitler.

> There are still people using old Nokia phones

No one wants support for toasters and washing machines. We're talking general purpose compute hardware. TCP is also supported on all these devices. Quite frankly, it's probably easier to implement, if you are not fighting a locked-down OS like iOS.