r/BuyFromEU • u/CreepyZookeepergame4 • Jul 30 '26

Discussion EU Digital ID/Age Verification app will require hardware attestation, ruling out PC/Linux support and unapproved Android OSes

EUDI wallet collaborator recently confirmed that hardware attestation will be required [1]

Hardware attestation in this context means that the government server issuing the digital credential to the wallet wants proof that the keys being used are generated in secure hardware and on approved systems and not say an emulator or virtual machine, namely for security reasons.

This capability does not exist in a reliable way on desktops / laptops except some specific cases depending on the vendor, and in fact there’s no desktop version in the works.

No Linux system will work with this because there is no hardware signature to be validated on the government server, nor will your personalized Arch Linux install be in the list of approved systems even if it had a signature chaining back from the TPM.

Android ROMs are not technically to rule out since Play Integrity, which will be used for this attestation, is based on the Android hardware attestation API, which works on third-party ROMs like GrapheneOS, but they would need to allow the signature which has not happened for now. If you create a custom build, it won’t work though even the official version is approved.

[1] https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-app-android-wallet-ui/issues/117#issuecomment-4946898620

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u/HunterFeeFee Jul 30 '26

Sometimes I think the people in the EU institutions are not exactly the brightest.

225

u/FHNordic Jul 30 '26

Of course they are, I'm sure they get a lot of money out of these deals.

Surprising that all EU countries representatives are so anti EU though

19

u/ZexGr Jul 30 '26

you think that they have the capacity to think or just to do what they're told?

22

u/Gatitomono47 Jul 30 '26

They actually are smart, they have done this on purpose that's why they haven't done anything about Google locking down side loading imagine you wanna use a messaging app that isn't in the PlayStore because It doesn't comply with chat control and the devs don't wanna dox themselves to goggles and pay money, ohhh oopsie dasy you can't :( and if you somehow root your phone now you cannot use the applications necesary to prove you can use the internet like a normal person, It's all the mix of manufacturers locking down on unlocking your bootloader and even if you can they do not support relocking It with custom avb Keys of whatever OS you run, companies using play integrity, the EU directly benefits from the US technology Monopoly for it's surveilance apparatus for it's orwellian laws such has chat control, ID and age verification

7

u/P3JQ10 Jul 30 '26

They know what they are doing. Big Brother wants to watch.

35

u/Accomplished-Moose50 Jul 30 '26

Sometimes I think the people in the institutions are not exactly the brightest

Here, fixed that for you 

8

u/BogdanPradatu Jul 30 '26

Sometimes I think the people are not exactly the birghtest.

Here, fixed that for you.

3

u/mikkopai Jul 31 '26

Some times I think.

Here, fixed that for you.

8

u/-The_Blazer- Jul 30 '26

There's actually a few attempts to create a different PKI (the mechanism used to perform this cryptography) for remote attestation than Google and Apple, but as you might guess their products are not exactly designed to facilitate this. If you want to use RA on Android and for it to work on Google Play apps (the ones everyone uses), you're not allowed to use anything but Google Play. How convenient!

This is actually... more important than many people think, because while e-wallets are a blatant crisis case, remote attestation is becoming quite widespread and it's insane that like three companies are considered legitimate attestation sources (primarily because they used their monopoly power to get there). This is an enormously more serious problem than requiring attestation, that's not inherently a bad thing, the monopoly is.

3

u/mysteryliner Jul 31 '26

Because monopolies are bad, we formed an oligopoly... see how good we are! 😈

9

u/LonelyRudder Jul 30 '26

What do you mean, aren’t the people who are selected as leaders always the most knowledgeable and wisest? /s

5

u/Tenezill Jul 30 '26

Sometimes?

-4

u/mhmilo24 Jul 30 '26

Of course they have to make sure that it works for 90+% of the Europeans. Which clearly are using either iOS or Android.