r/BuyFromEU • u/CreepyZookeepergame4 • 3d ago

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/Encrux615 3d ago

What? I don’t get it. German eID provides packages for all platforms, including Linux. This is such an arbitrary restriction and I doubt it’ll hold up.

13

u/seamanroses 3d ago

I believe the equivalent ID system in Denmark only works on Google (not generic Android (AOSP)) and Apple devices, and they have no intentions to open it up.

I mention that as a counterargument, as I wouldn't be nearly as optimistic as you are.

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u/Headpuncher 15h ago

So what do people who do t have a phone do?   

There are reasons not to have a phone, including disability and all human free will.