I’ve been looking into moving towards a more privacy friendly OS on my phones; I’ve been deGoogling my phones to the maximum extension I can manage, deactivating stock apps and putting in as much FOSS possible.
But what other options are there out there?
I don’t want to go full out into Linux Phone territory, as I am not tech savvy enough to maintain a phone on that line, and I have two bank and a carrier applications I would like to keep using.
As I write this, Murena and their /e/ OS seems to be a good option, as they have some accessibly priced equipments and the OS itself seems to be a clean(er) Android.
Here in Sweden, bank issued ID on the phone is pretty much required for everything. You can’t function in society without it. It isn’t tied to Google or Apple, but you must have a smartphone that supports it (ie. iOS or Android).
So you can’t just carry around a debit or credit card for physical purchases?
You can if you want, but most just blip their phones. But that goes through Apple/Google pay. Basically no one uses physical money though, except for criminals. I haven’t even seen physical money in years.
Bank issued ID? Can you explain that a bit?
We have a digital ID called BankID that is standardized by the banks. All banks can issue it, and it can be used for mostly anything online that requires real authentication, like paying with your card or logging in to manage your taxes etc.
That is a lot of trust put upon banks.
We have something similar in my country but it is the State that issues it; it serves as an authenticator for State services and connected entities.
For online payments and the sort, there are several systems in place. One very useful is issuing single-use, prepaid, cards for online use.
I’m curious to know whether you need to have an official Android phone (i.e. NOT a custom ROM, something validated by Google), or if the Google Play services are enough. In France there is a government ID application that no one uses, but it’s still usable on GrapheneOS.
I think you can get it to work on custom ROMs, but I’ve also heard about people having trouble with it. A colleague recently bought a Jolla phone…if he can get everything to work, maybe I’ll switch as well in the future.