Hi, my name is Serafim Dahl and I am a retired teacher in mathematics and computer science but I still have some assignments. I program for my earlier employer on spare time.
For the sake of security I use only (hardened) Linux and Unix on my computers as this is what is needed in the almost daily contact with the computers at work.
When finally at roads end in a couple of years I want to continue using Linux as it is free, secure, resource efficient enough to run on my by that time quite old computers and, naturally, because I'm used to it.
However, a problem has emerged. The Swedish banks started, a couple of years ago, a company, Finansiell ID-Teknik BID AB (Financial ID Technology LTD, "BID" stands for their only product "BankID") henceforth shortened to BID.
BID has, so far delivered its BankID application for windows (all flavours), MacOSX and Linux. Recently they have delivered a cellphone app thet runs on Android, iOS and windows 8 phone.
The Linux (not Android) application was only for 32-bit Ubuntu but if you were knowledgeable enough you could get it up and running on any flavour of Linux, on 32-bit as well as 64-bit systems.
Recently, BID announced that Linux will no longer be supported, due to the poor user base, only 5000 users. This is of course a huge underestimation. If you deliver a product that is quite useless then of course the usage will be poor.
Conspiracy theories are not far away, given that the BID company has a reputation for being strictly Microsoft oriented, that rumours have it that a large part of their employees are recruited from MS Sweden and that BID bought the Android and iOS solutions from elsewhere.
Looking at statistics on OS usage in Sweden the real number of Linux users vary between 75 000 and 125 000 with a peak at the closing of MS Windows XS support at roughly 300 000 users. How will people be able to choose free software if the only way to contact authorities and banks is via restricted proprietary software?
For me, this is a democracy issue as well as both a legal issue and a competition issue. I don't want the banks to tell me what to use on my computers (and I want to continue my work). I also want an electronic ID to be usable from any hardware that can communicate with the bank. I don't want such a central piece of software to simply rule out the only free and open system on the market.
What makes it even worse is that BID is the dominant company in the field of e-ID in Sweden and that the authorities have chosen to give directives that allow them to choose freely what they shall support and not support. Some of the directives say that they must deliver a system that can be used on all frequently used platforms to become certified, but they choose to stay away from certification as, in any case, they are dominant even without certification.
Finally, most banks allow only login by the BID application and likewise, most authorities have few other options. This means that I, in the future, must purchase a windows or MacOSX computer, a smart phone or a tablet running one of their chosen OS:es to be able to contact authorities or to pay my bills.
In my special case I must also close down my other computers and skip the connection to my employer while contacting an authority or a bank.
I need help to make authorities and BID understand that they ought to deliver an e-ID system that does not shut out 75-125 000 people or force them to invest a lot of money to be able to pay bills and contact authorities.
I have declared war on BID and sent letters, quite similar to this one but in Swedish, to BID complaining about their plans (to no avail), to all political parties with no or almost no result, to a lot of authorities and influential organisations and decision makers.
Sincerely, Serafim Dahl Retired university teacher (math and computer science) and application programmer (mainly Java, Groovy and Grails)