Think twice before closing this page, thinking "that's just in Sweden, it doesn't affect me". See it as a warning, an example of how bad things can become if left to governments, banks, and even companies without anyone saying anything about it, and a tiny look into the future if things keep going in the same direction. All depending on where you live, of course.

In Sweden, there's something called BankID. It is a digital ID that is issued by the banks. (The name might be a hint about that...)

There are also other electronic ID systems, for example Freja eID, but BankID is by far the major player, both in number of places it is accepted and people having it. If not otherwise stated, obvious, or the difference is unimportant, I include these other systems when I write BankID from now on.

So, what's good about it, and what's bad about it? To begin with, on both points, it makes KYC easy.

When KYC is easy, more places will demand KYC. Beginning with the more "normal", we have Swish, Sweden's money-sending app - I think it's similar to Venmo or ApplePay - it can be used to pay in many stores and restaurants, or send money between people. It requires BankID (only BankID, no other) on the same phone. Then we have payments - I don't know exactly what is required by law and what is up to the vendors, and in which cases, but in at least many cases when paying for anything online, by card or invoice, you must identify yourself with BankID when paying. Laws have been proposed to make it mandatory when paying with invoice, "to prevent invoice address fraud". Then we have the healthcare. For any online health service in Sweden, you need BankID. Otherwise it's only phone or physical visit. Then we come to the ridiculous: The major buy-and-sell site, Blocket, is pretty useless unless you have and use BankID. You need BankID to log in to "my pages" with many companies, among them Telia, a big internet and telecom service provider. Even with companies where you don't need it, but can use it, the alternative ways are usually somewhat hidden away, them clearly seeing BankID as the preferred option. You need BankID to get access to unmanned 24/7 grocery stores. There is/was (not sure) even a dating site/app that require(d) BankID and use(s/d) that as a selling point in their commercial.

Many paid parking lots have no other way to pay than with mobile app, of which at least some - I don't know how many or if it has increased - require BankID.

Many public bathrooms - not in restaurants and stores, those are usually free, but those that municipalities, train stations, etcetera have - does not have coin acceptors, but can only be paid with Swish, so in many places you quite literally need BankID in order to take a shit!

To add a rotten cherry on top of all this, by being needed by a vast majority of people, it is also a blocking factor for the adoption of Free and Open Source operating systems, since it - of course - only runs on iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows. I don't know about the alternative eID:s, but they are pretty irrelevant due to not being accepted in many places.

So, what do Swedes in general think about BankID? I don't know, since I haven't asked a statistically significant number of people, but the general feeling I get is that a few people are slightly annoyed and "close their fist in their pocket" as we say, but most people - like a dog fetching the leash - like it because it's convenient when they already have it.

There is a tagline in the media sometimes about the "digital exclusion" of mostly elderly people, but the discussion rarely goes in the direction that the requirements of BankID and other digital services can be the problem, but rather to educate and help the elderly to use them.

Speaking of which - one of the most common forms of fraud in Sweden nowadays are criminals calling people, usually the elderly, pretending to be from their bank or similar, asking them to log in with BankID, for example to "block a fraudulent transaction".

If Bitcoin payments become commonplace in Swedish e-commerce, I'm sure the Swedish government will make up some reason to require all merchants to require BankID to pay with bitcoin... Unless they already have.

I am of the firm opinion that, like someone said, KYC is the illicit activity. So I think this is a perfect slogan: BankID: Evil made Easy!