Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.
I was so stunned I was like, surely this must violate some government rule around universal access and service? But I guess not.
What's more, the app is so buggy reddit is filled with support cases of people not being able to complete the process in time and sometimes having to forfeit hundreds of dollars worth of tickets: https://www.reddit.com/r/AusVisa/comments/1jh2olm/having_an_...
The advice literally boils down to, some models of iPhones don't work so go borrow a friend's phone of a different model and pray that they can process your application for you.
That link clearly says you don't have to use an app.
If you are unable to use the app, you can apply online through ImmiAccount for another visa that suits your needs.
This triggered me because I've been to Australia tens of times (albeit not since 2023) and have always used my Immi account. I just logged in to check and sure enough I can still lodge an application there, no app required. Ironically I would prefer an app and will use it for my next visits because I've always found the Immi site cumbersome. But the site is still there.
The other "helpful" suggestion is that, if you can't use the app, you can apply for a regular full-blown tourist visa (Subclass 600), which costs $145 and takes weeks if not months to process.
The issue is the obvious anti patterns in the following flow. While its not particularly egregious, someone has taken intentional steps to make it convuluted. Engaging with gov services should not feel like trying to unsubscribe from amazon prime:
But there's really good reason for this. On the app it can use NFC to read your passport data exactly. Until WebNFC supports reading passports, it is a much more efficient way.
It's not like they are getting some long term benefit of having the app on your phone. It's just because WebNFC can't read passports.
The information on my passport is of comparatively little value compared to the information on my devices. Most states could get my passport information with little more than a friendly request to my government, same for most, access to my phone however.
Why give up more information than is strictly necessary, so you can tap your passport on your phone? Not convincing imo.
Is it really convoluted? It's 2 clicks?
If the mobile app solution is the better and simpler choice for most people, wouldn't it make sense for them to recommend it?
(article author here): Fair comment, but at least for me the https://www.gov.uk/eta flow still just leads into the double upsell of the mobile app. My problem is more with governments (all of them, this is just one instance) increasingly pushing people to use native Apps and with that to the mercy of Google/Apple.
The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs. Your opinion can vary on if I have succeeded or overshot on that.
> My problem is more with governments ... pushing people to ... Google/Apple.
It's worse than that. Many municipalities and schools etc only post public notices to Facebook/Twitter or some similarly hostile environment.
> The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs.
But. Your headline contradicts your story. The only excuse for that (and it is weak) is when writers don't get to write their own headlines (this is common) and the editors who do write the headlines are corrupted for clicks or drama (but I repeat myself).
I wrote about my thinking here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168225). I do not have a story and I am not a writer that has editors so I have no excuse but my personal taste ;). You will disagree with that, but just wanted to mention it so it does not seem like I am ignoring it.
I'll push back on one point: when I said "contradicts your story", I meant that the headline and the story (article content) are in conflict. So you do have a story/article, and yes your headline is squishy enough to argue misinterpretation, but it's clearly not honest.
So the tension is that the boring but honest headline of "Applying for a UK visa without a smartphone requires a few extra clicks that are easy to overlook" doesn't serve the (apparently higher) purpose of drawing people in.
I was expecting outrage in your article, but I only found inconvenience. That's manipulative in my opinion, and I would avoid reading future articles on your site based on that experience. Do as thou wilt, obviously, but that's my take!
Your topic (smartphone/appstore requirements) is a real issue! I'm glad to hear that the UK hasn't gone all-in, yet.
2. Now click the big green button marked "Start now" in the "Apply online" section
3. Then click the link at the bottom of the page marked "I cannot apply on the UK ETA app"
4. Then click again "Continue application online"
And now you can start.
Realistically this is probably 2 clicks too many and, whilst on the face of it it's not that much effort, it might be enough to bamboozle the tech phobic/less capable - of which there are still many (and not just older generations, either), or your grasp of English isn't great. There's just a bit too much going on - too much content - with some of these pages, and I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.
But it will be simpler on a phone, as you don't need to do the same manual entering of data, and don't need to get a photo of your passport and a photo of yourself onto your computer.
> I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.
I'd not be surprised if the number of issues when using the app is significantly lower than doing it online. Particularly if lots of people are using phones to visit these sites anyway.
FWIW, the online application only allows you to apply for a single person at a time, so for a family of four you need to repeat the whole process (including payment) four times. And the automatic identification of passport and picture does not work very well. And some payments randomly fail.
It is not a very good system. They do seem to respond fast tho!
It's not difficult, however it does violate privacy. It is one more brick in the wall for requiring that all citizens own smartphones. And smartphones themselves are quite bad for privacy. When I frequent a business and they tell me use their smartphone app, my response varies from "no," to "I'm not downloading your fucking app." (depending on how polite the business has been)
100% of smart phone apps are bad. There are NO exceptions to this, by virtue of the fact that you must own and use the smartphone to access them. We stand to lose a lot when we finally lose this fight. (and I'm sure we will)
Let me know when researchers want to start lugging around laptops when they go splunking in caves to record bat populations and I'll tell them about the web portal.
It's well known that bat research didn't even exist prior to 2007. Steve Jobs famously took the stage and declared, "I have finally achieved bat research!"
But the article seems to take a very roundabout way for it, and still doesn't link the direct version. I just did the same thing, googling 'UK ETA', clicked the top result, then clicked the most salient link on the result page ('Apply'), then clicked the most salient button on the next page which is a big green 'apply now button', though it is after the links to the app (but those links are not big and green). Admittedly I do have a decent amount of experience with the UK government's website which tends to have this pattern of a few pages of explanations about the thing before you get to the form you need to fill in, but it surprises me that it was that hard to find.
(Edit: ah, no, I see: the next steps are quite dark-pattern pushing you towards the app. Yeah, that's quite shitty)
No, I think he searched for the ETA App and was disappointed at the lack of emphasis on an alternative to the app once you are in it. If you just search the web for ETA and gov.uk it takes you straight to the online portal (which also asks for feedback as it's a service in Beta). The gov.uk website is neutral between you using the app or the online portal.
The only point I can see here is that once you are in the app it keeps encouraging you to use it and doesn't keep suggesting you might like to use the online portal instead. But I don't understand the initial premise about not using app stores. If the author didn't want to use an app store, why did he download an app instead of going to gov.uk?
there's a lot of promoted scam tho on google. This one : https://getetauk.co.uk/fr/ got me when i was a rush at the airport and i paid 125€ for the fucking eta without confirmation
Yeah it's really overblown. I applied for an ETA online last year and it took probably about 15 min from searching for where to do it to the confirmation email dropping in. It was pretty painless, much more so than the ESTA process for travelling to the US&A and even that one isn't particularly difficult.
Its not so much the process that is the complaint here, as that the UK government is intentionally using Big Tech style anti-patterns to push engagement in a particular manner. It's a dangerous precedent (and not even close to the first time they've done similar).
Did you even read the article and tried going through the process? Suggesting the user to download the app is front and center and the link to apply online is tucked away in a link at the bottom. Not great, but fine, I'll live with that. But that's not the end is it? The user clicks continue online application, then why does it still give you another screen nudging you towards using the app? Making users feel like they are doing something wrong by not using the app.
After I got Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent settled status) in the UK, I had to buy a new phone that had NFC, because the new eVisa system required me to scan the chip in my passport to link it to the system. In general, the UK retains its mildly chaotic character - the 'disorderly order' that Kate Fox frequently mentions in her book Watching the English - but the immigration system is very much being tightened up due to political sentiment.
As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
I would half like to move back to the UK, but I'm terribly worried that after jumping through all the hoops so that my EU citizen partner could come with us and be a part our children's lives that Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there). I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power is, but it sure looks like a terrible but possible future from afar. :(
All of my EU friends living in the UK have now applied for citizenship.
The risk profile for "I have indefinite leave to remain" has moved from "this won't be an issue at all" to "we have no trust in the government on this" in a few short years.
I really cannot understand why people who are permanently settled in a country would not apply for citizenship.
It is not a matter of trust. Unless you are a citizen your right to remain in a country is always subject to the approval of the government and rules can change. it is the point of the distinction between "indefinite leave to remain" and citizenship.
> I have noticed that only white people commit to living in the UK without becoming citizens.
Alas, you've not discovered a hidden pattern, except maybe a hidden pattern in the kinds of people you socialize with. Chinese nationals cannot hold dual citizenship, and renouncing their Chinese citizenship creates very serious complications, including around property and inheritance when parents die, which you would be aware of if you knew any Chinese person well enough to have had this conversation with them.
Based on gov.uk immigration system statistics data and tables, among those with indefinite leave to remain, the most likely to seek citizenship are British Overseas Citizens, Austrians and Lithuanians. The least likely are Moroccans and Venezuelans.
Weird in the Venezuelans case, as there is no restrictions for double nationality and having only Venezuelan citizenship doesn't have many advantages. I would guess that it is because most Venezuelans living there already have an European passport due to parents/grandparent, so no need/can't get a third
Cannot only if the other European country does not allow dual nationality.
If they are permanently settled in the UK surely it would be better to have British citizenship rather than that of a country they do not live in?
The nationalities listed are all very small groups in the UK. maybe they are not really permanently settled? Someone who moves somewhere for work might end up living there a decade (and in the UK that would mean getting indefinite leave to remain) and then returning.
I admit not knowing a lot of Chinese nationals, but I do know a very wide range of people. Of course, issues with property and inheritance only apply to people who have sufficient for it to be a major issue.
Could you link to the stats showing that? What about all the other countries? What is the position of BNOs?
Indefinite leave to remain is not the same as permanently settled - there is a difference between long term and the rest of your life.
Apart from the fact that some countries don't allow dual citizenships so you would loose the other one:
- cost: ~2k
- time: 2 exams
- paperwork required to keep other nationalities in some cases
- after feb 2026, you can only re-enter the UK with a British passport (more cost) or with extra paperwork to enable your other passport (more costs ~500)
Countries that do not allow dual citizenship is a good reason, and maybe the cost and paperwork required by other countries (although, unless you really cannot afford it its worth getting it to cover yourself in case rules change). I did it myself.
The same goes for the cost of British citizenship. once you have it its just the cost of renewing passports (about £100/decade at current rates) for the rest of your life. That £2,000 is much less than the cost of renewing some types or residence visa and gives you the security of being a citizen.
Some countries don't allow dual citizenship, which means you'd no longer be a citizen of your country of origin, you know, where your family might live.
I have plenty of friends who otherwise would apply, and ILR should be sufficient in a democratic government following social and political contracts.
Yes: Austria and Slovakia still do, possibly others as well. And Germany only stopped preventing it within the last year or two.
The UK will help circumvent this for current British citizens when they acquire new citizenship in one of those countries (eg. America famously makes you hand over your old passport, but the UK will happily ship you a replacement in an unmarked envelope), but that doesn't really work so well in the other direction.
this was true until a few years ago for Italy and France too, getting one nationality would instantly lose you the other. I think this isn't true anymore, but I do have a friend who lived in the country for decades and never picked up the nationality because of this.
I think you are worrying too much and a lot of this is media hype. Their main focus is small boats and people entering the country illegally. If they do restrict them more you are almost certainly better off getting your partner a visa before (but I think you would need to marry to get a spouse visa though).
> Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there)
I think that is an exaggerated view from a distance. I see no evidence they can do that, or want to. At the time of the Brexit campaign Farage said he wanted skilled immigrants (he gave the example of Indian doctors immigrating in the 1970s as the wort of thing he wanted). Nor can the country afford to lose skilled people. Its worth remembering that Reform would not agree to what Elon Musk wanted in return for funding so I think its safe to assume Reform would not be as extreme as the current US government.
I am of foreign birth, as is my younger daughter (she was born abroad) and I am not particularly worried. I would worry if Rupert Lowe's Restore party started making gains, or Ben Habib's Advance party.
> I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power
They are doing well in the polls now but my feeling is they are peaking. Letting on too many Conservative defectors makes them look at lot less of an anti-establishment party (a huge part of their appeal) and they are becoming too extreme (I think in reaction to the splash, mostly on social media) made by Advance and Restore (one of those is what Elon Musk endorses, so that gives you an idea where they are).
The government can very easily change your status from "legal" to "illegal" by flipping a bit. And the newspapers, who are driving this, don't care about skills, they care about the raw numbers. The members of the public driving this don't even care about immigration status, but skin colour.
They can change people's status, but I am saying they will not. It is not Reform party policy (as Rupert Lowe keeps pointing out!) and it would be disastrous to do it.
The net immigration numbers are falling!
I disagree about the public. Its very clear that the opposition to immigration is almost entirely about small boats and illegal entry.
As for skin colour, of the tiny number or racists I have heard of in real life, one comment repeated back to me made it clear the person involved preferred at least some Asians (those with skills etc.) to Eastern Europeans.
> Its very clear that the opposition to immigration is almost entirely about small boats and illegal entry.
No, that's just the current talking point.
A decade ago, small boats not in the news, somehow managed to still be a big talking point on Brexit campaign. Worse, part of the Brexit campaign was scare-mongering that the EU had made it so the UK had no control over its borders, no control over its immigration laws, and even had one poster further scare-mongering that the UK would be forced to allow in the entire population of Turkey* even though Turkey wasn't actually in the EU nor did anyone think it would get in any time soon and the UK had a veto on expansion anyway (plus the more fundamental pretentiousness in thinking they'd want to come en-masse anyway, given that Turkish people are like everyone else, in that almost none of them really care for the idea of moving to the UK).
Even for "unlawful entry" of asylum seekers who were still allowed to lawfully claim asylum, the UK was part of the Dublin III system, which oh-so-conveniently meant the UK could argue that all the other countries most people would need to go through to get to the UK should have taken them first, to which I'd like to say this:
J'ai obtenu la note D au GCSE de français, et pourtant j'ai étudié la langue à l'école. À votre avis, comment un demandeur d'asile lambda originaire de l'ancien Empire britannique va-t-il s'en sortir?
Most asylum seekers do, in fact, stop at the first safe country; the UK has always only had a tiny fraction of the total, and loses its collective mind anyway.
Have you ever spoken to any member of the public in support of Reform to base your opinions on, or is this just similar to when every single brexit voters (millions of people) was assumed to be racist and uneducated
Almost everyone voting Brexit was uneducated on the issues, a fact rapidly borne out by actually speaking to them. Actually "uneducated" is quite charitable as quite a lot are racist also. I don't know how anyone can claim otherwise with a straight face.
Which issues were they uneducated on? How many did you speak to, and I'm not talking about the engagement-bait bots on places like the Trending side of Twitter
A lot of Republican supporters would have, and still might, insist that the US's current purge is focused on "criminals" despite the quota-driven shitfest it's become. People say a lot of things, and they rarely line up with policies in practice.
They have missed the EU settled scheme so its going to have to be a normal visa - so either the partner has to be skilled or wealthy enough to qualify, or it has to be a spouse visa.
Ah right. Well there are changes incoming shortly for that which could either be favourable or not depending on partners circumstances. Eg there is a high earner thing that shortens path etc
It does seem scarily likely, but he still has a few years to really screw things up before we get there. Fingers crossed.
Without a large-scale cock-up, I don't see Starmer as inspiring enough to stop him unfortunately. Lets hope someone else steps up to the plate with a bit more charisma.
If (more likely when but gotta stay optimistic) the fascists do take power there will be people that fight. There already are so many people standing up. My recommendation for a non-brit would unfortunately be to avoid moving to anywhere that could be classified as Little England. I'm fortunate enough to live in the bubble that is the "UKs happiest city", and while you cant pretend racism / xenophobia are extinct here, people do stick up for eachother and mind their own businesses. The UK is great, even so for immigrants, its just finding those pockets of tolerance and kindness in an ever growing sea of shite. British people need to focus on rebuilding our strong local communities that were smashed by Thatcher, and then this too shall pass.
Its funny how all the racism is happening somewhere else in the country, but very few people experience it themselves. Survey data supports this.
I have lived in several parts of the UK, have friends in many more. I currently live in a very white village. I am visible ethnic minority. I see no sign of racism. I know of a few overt racists at second or third hand (they know someone who knows someone I know).
There is lots of racism on social media, but even most of that is in reaction to ragebait posts, some posted by people who are not even British.
That's great for you! Not sure a single anecdotal experience outweighs the measurable rise in race related crime and the systemic issues that have long been present. Add onto that the sheer number of people who voted reform at the last election, and their pretty stellar local election performance thats forecast to only improve. Then cherry on top it with the anti-migrant rhetoric pushed by the majority of British news firms that has undoubtedly ended up influencing some pretty diabolical policy decisions (Rwanda, changes to student visas, leaving the EU when the leave side campaigned on an almost solely anti-migrant platform). And I guess were just ignoring the actual fascist marches in London over the past couple of years? Or the burning of hotels housing refugees? You can bury your head in the sand if you want, and I really am glad you're not suffering, but people are. Them today, you tomorrow.
> As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
They might tell you that, but that does not mean its true. IMO they do not care about dependence on American services. It is very much Somebody Else's Problem.
You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.
On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...
It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.
Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.
(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).
And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.
Some British women now find themselves in a Kafkaesque situation where the UK home office refuses to renew or grant them a UK passport, because their foreign passport is under a different name. (Greece and Spain are mentioned in [1], but I know people in France affected by this)
Where previously these women could at least travel to their birth country to visit dying relatives on their foreign passport, they are now locked out waiting two months for a £600 entitlement certificate. Meanwhile, non-British visitors can just pay £16 for an ETA on this whizzy app.
While this is a real problem and I do have relative who had this issue like this there are ways to get new UK passport without paying £600 or changing legal name in other country.
It's just take digging in government rules and arguing. As long as it's not the first UK passport it's doable.
My friend went round and round and sent many documents back and forth for over a year trying to renew her British passport, to no eventual avail. UK authorities were extremely unsympathetic and unhelpful. The offending "misnamed" foreign passport was long expired and French authorities required a valid British passport to renew it - she was left without any passport at all for over a year, until the French took pity and provided an alternate path to renew her French passport.
Hey. I will ask how exactly it was solved and try to reply here in a day or two. My relative is woman so problem was that she had her original name in a passport from country of origin and UK passport had her name after marriage.
Sure, but it was a change that was slipped through under the radar without any proper justification for it (the situation wasn't even clarified for dual nationals until quite close to the deadline).
eg South Africa allows dual but you’re not allowed to use the other passport at border or within country.
I can kinda understand it from give perspective. Harder to track people when they switch constantly. People flying in on one passport and out with the other etc
Most countries require their own dual-nationality citizens to enter on their local passports not foreign ones, Britain was an exception before. It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport, and I say this as someone affected.
Even if one takes this as legitimate, the "foreign" passport gives enough information already (otherwise they couldn't prevent me from acquiring an ETA with it).
Keeping track of which of your citizens are outside of the country. Ensuring the state knows you are a citizen and should be treated as such.
France had a weird issue recently about the media talking for ages about someone who committed a crime while the state had asked for him to be deported months before on the basis of his foreign passport and it took weeks for someone to finally notice that the guy was actually French. It made the police looks clownish.
I've read the issue is that some countries require you to renounce your previous nationality to get citizenship, and people have taken advantage of not needing a British passport by lying about renouncing their British citizenship.
I've seen claims this technique was actually recommended by the British consulate, no idea if that's true.
> I've read the issue is that some countries require you to renounce your previous nationality to get citizenship, and people have taken advantage of not needing a British passport by lying about renouncing their British citizenship.
Oh that's an interesting little loophole that might be a[nother] reason. A handful of EU member states disallow dual citizenship, so those taking advantage of "EU and British" might be impacted by this.
This new rule might be problematic for those Northern Irish people who identify solely as Irish (as is their right under the Good Friday Agreement) and who only hold an Irish passport: unless things have changed since the DeSouza case [0], the UK Government and UK law treat everyone born in Northern Ireland (as long as at least one of their parents meets citizenship or residency requirements) as a British citizen, regardless of their opinions on the matter. The UK Government holds that this is compatible with the GFA because you can renounce your British citizenship; but you have to pay hundreds of pounds to do so.
Small point, if you're traveling from republic of Ireland you don't practically need a passport or an ETA, you can just drive over the invisible border
Why does the title say "You better have a ... account" when the end of the article is literally a link to the form which does not require an account? I agree that the UI here is bad, but I feel like the title is just misrepresenting the content of the article.
(article author here): It's over the top from my annoyed reaction when I encountered the clickthrough. I am mostly annoyed at how much EU governments keep pushing native apps for government services, thus making them dependent on Google/Apple. The fallback exists here, but it is very much not what you are encouraged to use.
I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
It doesn’t really seem like humorous hyperbole, though. It’s currently just factually incorrect. And it’s in your power to fix it, especially if you agree now in retrospect!
Not sure I can change the submission anymore. I am happy with the title as it is for my own blog, it just created some irritation here.
I am not a native speaker, so my interpretation might be wrong, but I tried to evoke the semi-serious but good-natured "You went to the bakery? You better brought me a snack as well!" meaning with "better have", not the "must have" meaning.
The UK left the EU a while ago. UK citizens traveling to the EU will require an ETIAS authorization which also comes with an app at the end of the year, but that's not live yet. The website that's been prepared so far does mention the ability to file online, though.
It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue.
/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.
Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass.
For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
I mean they're the discount bus of the skies, designed for students and people on weekend breaks inter-EU. Avoid flying to Paris (Buvais) or certain other 'city' airports, keep your carry-on luggage within limits, and they're basically fine.
They've a safety record that's beyond reproach, and where else are you going to get flights for ~€50 across Europe?
If nothing else they disrupted a predatory pricing cartel. I'm old enough to remember when a flight England->Ireland or Spain->Portugal could be the guts of €300 or €400. Now we have a complete revision on pricing and it paved the way for multiple good budget carriers like Transavia.
Not to mention Michael O'Leary being an absolute rogue with his PR - particularly the recent spat with Elon Musk
I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app.
This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.
The thing about mobile apps is that majority of people likely prefer it.
Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing)
Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone).
As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app.
And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible.
The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.
Use of an app is not necessarily the problem. Requiring Google Play or the App Store is. We should be able to use apps without being in walled gardens.
More and more things require a Google-certified Android phone (and will not work with jailbroken/rooted phones, unlocked bootloader, and so one : banking apps of course, but also medical apps (e.g. Doctolib in France), ID apps (e.g. France identité), and a lot more. This "digital sovereignity" hype makes me laugh since in practice government apps are literally enforcing Google locks, effectively excluding people using LineageOS/MicroG and other similar open roms.
It's a quite straightforward use - few minutes, it uses NFC to the passport, it's very organized and well guided... except
you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
This is a common problem. I have it everywhere I go when I take my kids on holiday. Particularly ticket machines where you have to buy multiple tickets and can't add more than one to a transaction (Maltese buses are a good one).
I don't get the problem with my credit card. Might just be switching cards until you find one that isn't crap.
Yeah I'm in London so that's what we use here. But a lot of the European transport systems just chuck it through as a single transaction so if you buy three tickets it looks like repeated attempts to transact and is blocked.
That I'd not know, although it'd be very uncommon and has not happened. In the EU 3ds is a very standard process, the the payments require an explicit approval (national id cards/smartid, etc.)
Yeah weird, I've seen some vendors reject the purchase even after a successful 3ds validation, looks like something in the vendor/payment processor (rather than the bank) side
Hey some minister signed off a multimillion pound deal to get that app developed (to a firm that definitely no one in his family or business circles has stakes in), so we better get our money's worth!
In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.
On the other hand, Indians are rejoicing that this might actually be much easier for us. We will still be going through the Visa Application, but we will get the digital version of the e-visa (I read that a physical copy can also be printed).
In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability.
https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.
We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants.
We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.
A year or two ago I had a similar issue booking to see a Broadway show in NYC... baffling because surely a large percentage of their custom is international tourists. It must have been some kind of temporary glitch, but we had to do something else in the end.
We assumed that they charge some kind of penalty fee if you do not show up via your phone number, and this (most likely 3rd party) system only works with UK numbers.
There's no such service, and it's very unlikely that there ever would be given the attitude of the UK telecoms regulator.
There are things like premium rate phone lines (which you can dial for entering competitions) and special SMS short codes that allow you to send small amounts which get charged to your phone bill (typically used for charity campaigns - eg. "Text 'GIVE £5' to 71234").
But both of those systems require you to take specific action - there's nothing that would allow someone else to apply a charge to your bill on your behalf without your direct involvement. OfCom would have kittens if anyone were ever to suggest setting up something like that.
It's likely that the restaurants in this case were simply confused by a number starting with a + rather than a digit.
I've never got a number with them though. I know some of them do, but not all. I did find an app that gave me a voip number when I was in Canada which was handy.
Glad to see this posted - I have a UK trip coming up in a few months, and as a conscientious objector to the smartphone duopoly, this article will save me some irritation.
Visited the UK recently and had to obviously go through the same thing; had to click "I just want to use the online thing" 3 times. Was very frustrating.
Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app.
A related thing that bugs me is how many scam search results come up and are prioritised if you search for "uk eta" or similar. On google for me the real site is sandwiched in positon 4 after 3 and before 2 additional paid sponsored scam sites each with large block sections in the search results.
Scammers pay the the same good money for advertising space as legitimate companies. Google can profit from it, so there's no incentive to kick bad actors of their advertising platform.
Does the UK force you to disclose years worth of private messaging and social media history at the immigration checkpoint? If not, no American should be opining about this.
Aside from this app issue there's another instance of bloody minded bureacracy that affects dual citizens:
As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500.
Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation.
if you enter a country whose citizenship you have you must always enter with the travel document or proof of citizenship of that country. no exceptions. that is a global convention. using a foreign document is most likely a violation of the law. (there may be exceptions in some countries that don't issue passports abroad).
that waiver document is ridiculous though. what does it cost to get a new passport at a british embassy? as a german i can get a temporary passport within a day at any german embassy for about 30€ or 60€. enough to travel back home.
> if you enter a country whose citizenship you have you must always enter with the travel document or proof of citizenship of that country. no exceptions.
Completely untrue. I have done so perfectly legally.
It's not a law in either the US or UK as far as I know, but both countries always got pissed off at you if they figured it out. I know because I've been lectured by border-officers on both ends before :)
"Pissed off" here meaning that you were likely to get "randomly selected" for secondary screening.
It absolutely has been the convention that you use the local form of identity if you have one. This ETA issue is just them pushing that a bit harder.
UK citizens must now enter on their UK passport (or a citizenship certificate thing + foreign passport), and are not eligible for visa waiver programs (because they're only eligible for people using certain passports, which UK citizens obviously now can't be using).
I was announced in Nov '25, and has cause a mad scramble for lots of people as the passport office has been massively backlogged by the predictable queue of people needing passports suddenly, when they didn't need them before.
It's 100% illegal to present a non-US passport at the US border if you are US citizen.
The law is 8 U.S.C. 1185 - "it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid United States passport."
In the past, the penalty for violating this has generally just been "a stern talking to," like you said. But no guarantees on that.
My wife moved to Belgium for me 8 years ago and also has dual citizenship. She assumed it would be fine to travel on Belgium passport + ETA but that's not allowed.
She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute.
My native-Swedish friends all complain about the bureaucracy here, but it is so much more efficient than the British stuff.
Some of that, though, is a side-effect of the ubiquitous "Bank ID" identity tool - which suffers from the same dependency on Apple/Google that the article complains about. Given the current political climate I think the EU is going to have to figure something out to address this sort of thing.
The cost of a passport is negligible (~£10 per year on average), and it’s not reasonable to expect the UK to spend a lot of money architecting the system around a very small minority of dual citizens who don’t have passports.
Why should any special architecting be required given that I am an EU citizen with an EU passport. On the contrary, effort was expended to prevent me from obtaining an ETA to no purpose that has ever been justified.
Yes, I personally am not deeply inconvenienced by this, but that doesn't make it ok. Others are on much tighter budgets than me.
I have seen this complaint a lot but I think it is misplaced because it is frankly common sense to keep an update-to-date passport of the country you are a citizen of... People will have to apply for a passport and be done with it, nothing to see here...
Also, I suppose that the complaint comes only from people who live in countries that have visa-free travel to the UK and/or EU countries and who were just saving a little/money hassle otherwise they would already have an up-to-date British passport.
I'm a dual US/UK citizen, and the US has always required citizens to present their US passport to enter the US. The UK is doing the same. It's not a big ask.
Most years I don't visit the UK. My european passport is far more useful to me.
Note that this is an active change to the status quo. Up to and including today I had no need for my UK passport when entering the UK on my Swedish passport. From tomorrow I cannot do that and there's no reasonable explanation given for why this must change.
Edit: And while obviously this is not a big deal for me financially, there are a bunch of pensioners in the 3 million Brits living abroad and for many of them the £100 fee is a significant and unnecessary outlay.
I am the author and I love the UK, am sad about you leaving, and I am as angry about similar practices in EU countries. My gripe is with the pushing of foreign controlled apps, not the immigration rules.
I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
I feel like this is so much of an overreaction to a non-issue.
The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options.
It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).
There should always be web fallbacks for those opposed to smartphones or unable to use them. Insisting the elderly use them for any type of bureaucratic flow results too often in stress and confusion.
>The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. I
I think that about a lot of the cancellation flows posted on here that people consider "dark patterns". Skip an upsell or two, decline a pause offer, bam, cancellation page.
This is an insane take. Apple and Google both reserve the right to deny accounts to people without any legal appeal at worst. At best, a legal dispute would have to be resolved in US courts. How other countries (including my own) accept that as a condition to use public services is beyond belief, and pointing this out is not an overreaction.
Why are we willingly placing private companies – private companies subject to foreign jurisdictions, even! – in the role of gatekeepers of public services? We have surely completely lost our minds!
You can literally just use the online form. Have you actually tried using your search engine to query applying, and seeing just how easy it is to optionally apply online?
Over half of the world’s population is using an Android or iOS device. Most people visiting a country in the UK or have the means to afford a trip, most likely have a functioning mobile phone.
I find it somewhat amusing you think I’m “insane” for suggesting most of the modern world has a relatively accessible Android or iOS device to apply for a visa.
> You can literally just use the online form. Have you actually tried using your search engine to query applying, and seeing just how easy it is to optionally apply online?
This whole story is about how they're trying to pressure you into using the app.
> Over half of the world’s population is using an Android or iOS device. Most people visiting a country like the UK or have the means to afford a trip, most likely have a functioning mobile phone.
That does not in any way affect any of what I wrote. I'll try to write it differently: Do you think it's OK that Google and Apple decide (at worst on their very own without oversight, at best with the oversight of a foreign country that isn't the one you're travelling to or from) who gets to do these things and under what conditions?
> I find it someone amusing you think I’m “insane” for suggesting most of the modern world has a relatively accessible android or iOS device to apply for a visa.
I find it insane that you think that because Google and Apple happen to grace most people with access to Android and iOS, then it's fine that we all live by their mercy.
I’m sorry but I can’t respond further, conversation is going nowhere. You clearly have it out for Apple and Google, and you are not being “pressured” into doing anything.
Critical reading and thinking would lead you through the flow to click on the “continue application online” form.
I thought so too, but if you follow the 'start now' link you get a page full of trying to push you to use the app, then if you say you cannot all the way at the bottom, then you get another page trying to help you with installing the app, then you actually get the form. I'm quite disappointed, usually the UK government digital services are not quite so user-hostile.
There is also a new UK government requirement to verify your identity if you are a director or significant shareholder in a UK company.
The online route for that goes through a couple of pages then says "now switch to the app on your smartphone". In theory you can also go to a Post Office to get your documents checked but it didn't work for me.
It's insane that multi trillion government would rely on a foreign private entity for something so simple yet critical. The only sane answer here is corruption.
No, installing apps is just genuinely bad UX, at least for me, because my password manager doesn't work in apps, and I have to manually generate and copy and paste password. If creators of the app are extra stupid, they make it so that you cannot paste into the password input, so I have to enter the generated password character by character.
And why is it broken? Is there a way for a password manager app to somehow inspect other apps and identify forms within them and interact with the forms?
...yes? I can't tell if you're trolling at this point or genuinely unaware.
Both iOS and Android have APIs for this, you (as the app developer) just mark the relevant fields in the app as login/password/etc, and the OS will interact with your chosen password manager to autofill and/or save them.
If you've never seen this work on your device, then you might have something configured incorrectly — many app developers are incompetent and bad at this; but not _all_ of them.
It works for filling an existing password, but not for creating a new one, iOS still prompts me to fill existing even though I'm on the sign up page. On the web 1Password can also automatically generate a Fastmail masked email address, but I doubt there's any hope for that to work in a native app.
> Can you spot where you would find alternatives to using the app on this page?
I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.
Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).
(article author here): The big green "Start Now" button on https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply takes me to the same double push-for-the-app flow in the article (on desktop firefox). But otherwise true, should probably have searched for "UK ETA", but coming from the announcement, that is very clear you need the app, searching for "UK ETA App" felt natural.
There is a link that says “I cannot use the app” and at the bottom of the page there is “Apply online instead” which takes you here, and you just press next:
The gov.uk designs are usually good, but this one... I had friend coming to visit from overseas and they were unable to fill it in. It's too confusing. So the visit is postponed.
Wallet codes bought at local monetary terminals to increase the balance of an account seems to be the less too much 'insecure' way to do things and to stay away from a hard dependency on whatng cartel web engines.
(author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha?
A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
I hope you take my feedback with an open mind as I don't mean anything personal. Your article is an example of people who look at things through their own lens rather than the general one.
I'm certain 95% of the population would be using Apple or Android, and the instructions on the Gov UK site are made for the majority, not for the edge cases.
My comment falls exactly within that, for most people, they define email as Gmail or Outlook. There are people who use Proton, iCloud, or personal domain emails, but the instructions will always mention what the average person would know and identify.
I can understand the feedback and I agree if you are building a product, you want to make it easy to use and intuitive for the majority. In my opinion, as a government you have an obligation to create processes differently though. You should provide and focus on a flow that is 100% in your/the citizens control with the messaging to match.
So in your email example, I think the governments messaging must be neutrally on email (and arguably the government should provide free Email accounts to citizens), but they could add convenience buttons to open GMail or similar.
But I recognize my opinion is probably an outlier, especially on hackernews. I can see your point as well and taken with an open mind :).
You joke, but this is something of a concern now that self hosting email is quite difficult (both for incoming spam and getting blocked as a spammer yourself).
No worries! The UK government has, just like all EU governments, announced again and again how they're going to become completely independent of US and China. Software. Hardware. Everything. This is just yet another example of that.
(another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification)
This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway.
I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ...
I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it.
It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old. It's often 2-4 clicks to get to the /actual/ thing you want, with many long pages of "ok here's what this thing is. Here's what will happen next".
(Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !)
So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk
I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old
Which is not a bug, but a feature of the gov.uk website, and it's the best and the most important one. 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it when you'd need to renew your passport via gov.uk.
Funny you say that, I actually just did a company tax return and confirmation statement a couple of days in the midst of bad COVID (2 hours sleep per night) and I was still annoyed about the multi-step process:
1) gov.uk, search for 'file confirmation statement'
2) Despite there being a sole autocomplete result and clicking on it, taken to the search results page
3) Click the first result. Turns out it's the guidance page
4) Go back, click the second result. We're getting warmer
5) Click "Start Now"
6) Get redirected to the 'Sign in to WebFiling' landing page. You can't actually sign on on this page.
7) Click 'Continue'
8) Another landing/explainer page! ("We're taking you to GOV.UK One Login to sign in to this service")
9) Click 'Go to GOV.UK One Login'
10) You think we're done yet? Think again. Another landing page!
11) Click "Sign in"
12) Think they'd let you just enter an email and password on one page? Nope! Enter email
13) Click Continue
14) Enter password
Finally...
No idea how anyone who doesn't work for GDS can justify this. It's mad
It's a bug when you're neither 5 nor 89 or have used it 10 times before...
Look, I know it's a hard problem, and GDS have a lot of talented, smart people. I appreciate making something work for both an 18 year old and an 89 year old is a hard requiement.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with having those help docs easily available so you can read at your leisure, rather than being 'forced' to wade through it each time
Perhaps we can agree to disagree that it's not a 'bug' based on the Government's general approach to how it treats its citizens and what it deems as a requirement (as compared to eg the Netherlands/Germany which is a bit more 'it's not our fault you're stupid', 'go read the docs!')
It’s important to be empathetic here to how difficult these things can be for less tech literate people.
Adding more guidance and nudges doesn’t prevent capable users from succeeding, it just annoys them. But it means the lowest common denominators have a higher chance to succeed, which is much more valuable than level of annoyance.
No, the GDS should definitely replace all services on gov.uk to be only accessible via MCP. "Claude, I've logged into PayPal via oAuth, now renew my passport" /s
They call it content design [1] and I love it! I've lived in a few countries, and gov.uk is by far the easiest way to interact with the government that I've experienced. As an immigrant, it can be confusing to navigate a new country's legal idiosyncrasies, so I appreciate them dumbing it down for me.
Although, I'll have to admit it's been getting worse lately. My latest annoyance is the "GOV.UK One Login" they introduced in addition to the existing "Government Gateway" login. I never know which I'm supposed to use on which page, and some pages accept either. Not great UX.
This feels super unfair to the gov.uk experience design which for me stands out head and shoulders above any other web workflow delivered by the public sector I've ever come across.
Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.
In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.
Finally, this:
> a party in power famous for paternalism
is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
You're trying to paint me as someone who hates the whole gov.uk experience - which is not what I wrote or implied
I'm allowed to be frustrated and to criticise it - I'm a tax-paying British citizen.
> is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
It's sequitous and highly relevant as GDS is part of the Government. Your comment just reads like a reflexive defensive reply by someone who can't stand any criticism of something they personally like.
The idea that a Labour Secretary of State would be phoning up the Cabinet Office screaming down the phone at them about interaction design on the website while a Tory one would just have their feet up is ludicrous and you know it.
Imagine you go into a shop to buy a newspaper every day. And every day, the shop owner explains to you what a newspaper is, what it usually contains, how much it costs, and how to read it
Is that excellent interaction design and good customer service? (edit: not a rhetorical question fwiw)
Government services need to be as easily accessible and clear to understand as possible, they may be used by the elderly, people with learning disabilities or people who don’t speak the language of the country that well (like those who would want to enter it for tourism as in TFA) - designing them with the assumption that the user is a 5 year old who needs everything explained to them in simple terms is a good approach.
The fact that it’s slightly more tiring for users like you who already know all the details and just want to get to the point is at most a minor drawback that’s easily justifiable by the accessibility gains.
To answer your question specifically: No, for a newspaper vendor that’s not great interaction design, but if you replace newspaper with any government service and shop owner with the government, it sounds perfect to me. I also struggle to imagine a scenario in which you’d need to access those services every single day, but I may be missing something there.
Do you not get how awful of an analogy that is? You're implying you cant move forward until that explanation process is done. Last I checked you've got a finger and scroll wheel at your disposal.
Analogies aren't perfect by definition (it doesn't imply that, btw, you're reaching). Anyway, it's a weak reply to attack the analogy rather than the thought behind it.
I notice you're not the person I asked btw. No need to start a vendetta just because I have a different opinion about one aspect of gov.uk. That's a bad look, for you.
Congratulations, you're a lot smarter than the average person. I understand this is sometimes a bit annoying, but at the end of the day it's probably something to be grateful for.
Awful take. Other than the broken mess that is One Login the whole gov.uk setup is a breath of fresh air compared to most countries online government services.
It's incredibly hard to cater for a wide audience, and they do it pretty damn well. Just because you fit in the "I know what I'm doing category" it doesn't mean they should strip away all the bits that help those not in that category.
I’m sorry but this is an awful take. gov.uk’s design is excellent, probably the best government interface in the world. My friends from other European countries are literally shocked at how easy things are to do (often, tasks that in their countries would require going to some bureaucrat _in person_ and waiting hours, sometimes multiple times).
yeah, but I got the impression that the EU is very much doing it as a retaliation to the US and UK doing it. Tho they could have limited it to just those countries.
The US, maybe. But wiki suggests ETIAS (the EU one) was proposed in 2016 whereas the UK ETA idea was created around 2023, so ETIAS can't be a reaction to ETA - perhaps the other way round?
I'm not sure if, without Brexit, the UK would have ended up with ETIAS anyway - it's a "mostly Schengen but not exactly" thing so it would have depended on what agreement they came to.
My impression was that the EU did it to prevent people doing visa-free layovers from claiming asylum, while the UK did it to negotiate a dual exception with the EU in the future.
ETA is a visa to the entire world in all but name. I'm not looking forward to the future where every county implements is and visa-free travel becomes a thing of the past.
I wish countries would stop trying to be cute with names like ESTA, KETA, ETA, etc and call it what it is: an evisa. These countries lie and say "don't worry bro you don't need a visa bro. Just ride that plane bro. it's free bro.", then you find out there's some government portal that runs 9-5 local time five days a week (holidays off) and requires a $X fee every submission with a chance of failing for a random reason. And it can take days for a response to come.
And people will say "it's not a visa bro. You just need to upload your photo, personal info, pay a fee, and they'll get back to you in a few days to tell you whether you're allowed in." Indonesia and India have identical processes with 5 minute turnaround times. Know what they call them? E-Visas. And if you're not eligible for an evisa, you go get a normal one.
It's tedious because you search for whether a country needs a visa, and results will say "nope", but it turns out if you're from specific nationalities that get visa free travel (but not all), you don't need a visa, but you need some random application for something named with a random combination of letters. And if you don't know that specific name, a shallow search might say you're fine.
Just quit the BS. Call it an evisa. And countries that call their process evisas handle them cheaper, faster, and more easily than ESTA or whatever other scam/visa workaround other countries have.
I've never been rejected yet, but it's a pain in the ass needing to do a deep search, thinking I'm fine since no visa is required, then finding out 3 days before my flight while browsing travel forums there is some secret application I need to submit and their webpage is slow and buggy as hell.
A visa is entirely different. EU citizens of course don't need a visa to visit the UK (or the US, or Canada). The UK always had some special border shenanigans (not in the Schengen, etc etc), even for travelers with EU passports, but demanding an advance application with an associated fee is a new level of ridiculousness.
The reason the ETA app exists is because the web is a terrible platform for doing this stuff on. The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.
There is no need for the ETA app, you should just come to the passport check, a guy there would check the passport, and you'd enter, like we used to do for decades pretty much everywhere.
> The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application.
> The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found.
Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
W3C are dragging their feet on WebNFC: https://github.com/w3c/web-nfc/issues/355, which prevents the talking "to the NFC in your passport" flow from being fully implementable in a website (hence requiring you to install an App). Not sure what the current state of this issue is, or if this github issue represents the latest developments in it, but AFAIK it is one of the MAJOR blockers for a fully web-based flow.
They are not "dragging their feet". Chrome implemented NFC, vomited out a semblance of a standard and said "there, it's standard now". Who cares about objections from other vendors.
Not really. It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. That requires something a little more complicated than a PHP app from the 90s.
Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it?
> It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots.
I never knew you can only upload one photo to a website ever. Or that you can only process one photo at a time on the server.
> Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it
Because gov.uk's own team has multiple talks and articles on how not everyone has access to latest and greatest tech, accesses government services through weird devices etc.
As somebody who JUST got the UK ETA recently (~2 weeks ago), I can talk about my experience.
Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA.
The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop).
So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21).
Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down).
"You are holding it wrong" x 10000
I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers.
I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences.
I hope the app developers are reading this.
I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.
but then I'm not on social media^[1]. Gave up on those things way before social media fatigue became en vogue.
I was just frustrated with the whole app experience. Some people had a smoother experience, which is fine. Mine was terrible, and I'm sure my parents would not have been able to use this at all.
[1] I am still on LI... which is something I want to give up next.
Is it really a lot of work?
You can search "UK ETA", find the main page: https://www.gov.uk/eta
Then click "Apply for an ETA" and you're brought to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.
The Australian ETA process, on the other hand, actually can only be done via an Android or iOS mobile app: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-li...
I was so stunned I was like, surely this must violate some government rule around universal access and service? But I guess not.
What's more, the app is so buggy reddit is filled with support cases of people not being able to complete the process in time and sometimes having to forfeit hundreds of dollars worth of tickets: https://www.reddit.com/r/AusVisa/comments/1jh2olm/having_an_...
The advice literally boils down to, some models of iPhones don't work so go borrow a friend's phone of a different model and pray that they can process your application for you.
That link clearly says you don't have to use an app.
If you are unable to use the app, you can apply online through ImmiAccount for another visa that suits your needs.
This triggered me because I've been to Australia tens of times (albeit not since 2023) and have always used my Immi account. I just logged in to check and sure enough I can still lodge an application there, no app required. Ironically I would prefer an app and will use it for my next visits because I've always found the Immi site cumbersome. But the site is still there.
For a different visa, not the ETA.
Ah. I’ve always used the subclass 651 eVisitor, without realising it was only for some European countries (or that it was different to the ETA).
The other "helpful" suggestion is that, if you can't use the app, you can apply for a regular full-blown tourist visa (Subclass 600), which costs $145 and takes weeks if not months to process.
Let me guess you have to be an Australian citizen (inmate?) to have the right to sue and then you won't have standing?
You have to be onshore to get the case in front of Admnistrative Tribunal (ACT)
The issue is the obvious anti patterns in the following flow. While its not particularly egregious, someone has taken intentional steps to make it convuluted. Engaging with gov services should not feel like trying to unsubscribe from amazon prime:
Go to https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
Click "Start Now" under apply online section (that is distinct from the app section)
Get taken to page saying to get the app, scroll to bottom and click small link "I cannot apply on the app"
Get taken to a help getting the app page, scroll to the bottom and click small link "Continue application online"
Finally be in right place
But there's really good reason for this. On the app it can use NFC to read your passport data exactly. Until WebNFC supports reading passports, it is a much more efficient way.
It's not like they are getting some long term benefit of having the app on your phone. It's just because WebNFC can't read passports.
That is not a `good reason`, that is `convenience` and it shouldn't be used to push to install an app from increasingly hostile nations/corporations.
> It's not like they are getting some long term benefit of having the app on your phone. It's just because WebNFC can't read passports.
The same way we complain that Facebook, Tiktok, etc gather too much data from app install, so can a government agency.
You are literally sharing biometric passport information with the government for an ETA in this app. Information sharing is the whole point.
The information on my passport is of comparatively little value compared to the information on my devices. Most states could get my passport information with little more than a friendly request to my government, same for most, access to my phone however.
Why give up more information than is strictly necessary, so you can tap your passport on your phone? Not convincing imo.
Is it really convoluted? It's 2 clicks? If the mobile app solution is the better and simpler choice for most people, wouldn't it make sense for them to recommend it?
(article author here): Fair comment, but at least for me the https://www.gov.uk/eta flow still just leads into the double upsell of the mobile app. My problem is more with governments (all of them, this is just one instance) increasingly pushing people to use native Apps and with that to the mercy of Google/Apple.
The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs. Your opinion can vary on if I have succeeded or overshot on that.
> My problem is more with governments ... pushing people to ... Google/Apple.
It's worse than that. Many municipalities and schools etc only post public notices to Facebook/Twitter or some similarly hostile environment.
> The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs.
But. Your headline contradicts your story. The only excuse for that (and it is weak) is when writers don't get to write their own headlines (this is common) and the editors who do write the headlines are corrupted for clicks or drama (but I repeat myself).
This way lies madness, the road to hell, etc.
This is not the way of the honest writer.
I wrote about my thinking here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47168225). I do not have a story and I am not a writer that has editors so I have no excuse but my personal taste ;). You will disagree with that, but just wanted to mention it so it does not seem like I am ignoring it.
I appreciate your response, and your candor.
I'll push back on one point: when I said "contradicts your story", I meant that the headline and the story (article content) are in conflict. So you do have a story/article, and yes your headline is squishy enough to argue misinterpretation, but it's clearly not honest.
So the tension is that the boring but honest headline of "Applying for a UK visa without a smartphone requires a few extra clicks that are easy to overlook" doesn't serve the (apparently higher) purpose of drawing people in.
I was expecting outrage in your article, but I only found inconvenience. That's manipulative in my opinion, and I would avoid reading future articles on your site based on that experience. Do as thou wilt, obviously, but that's my take!
Your topic (smartphone/appstore requirements) is a real issue! I'm glad to hear that the UK hasn't gone all-in, yet.
What you're saying is sort of fair. It's 4 clicks from https://www.gov.uk/eta to get to the beginning of the online application process:
1. The first hyperlink in the Overview section takes you to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
2. Now click the big green button marked "Start now" in the "Apply online" section
3. Then click the link at the bottom of the page marked "I cannot apply on the UK ETA app"
4. Then click again "Continue application online"
And now you can start.
Realistically this is probably 2 clicks too many and, whilst on the face of it it's not that much effort, it might be enough to bamboozle the tech phobic/less capable - of which there are still many (and not just older generations, either), or your grasp of English isn't great. There's just a bit too much going on - too much content - with some of these pages, and I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.
But it will be simpler on a phone, as you don't need to do the same manual entering of data, and don't need to get a photo of your passport and a photo of yourself onto your computer.
> I don't really see a good reason to bury the links all the way at the bottom the way they are at present.
I'd not be surprised if the number of issues when using the app is significantly lower than doing it online. Particularly if lots of people are using phones to visit these sites anyway.
FWIW, the online application only allows you to apply for a single person at a time, so for a family of four you need to repeat the whole process (including payment) four times. And the automatic identification of passport and picture does not work very well. And some payments randomly fail.
It is not a very good system. They do seem to respond fast tho!
It's not difficult, however it does violate privacy. It is one more brick in the wall for requiring that all citizens own smartphones. And smartphones themselves are quite bad for privacy. When I frequent a business and they tell me use their smartphone app, my response varies from "no," to "I'm not downloading your fucking app." (depending on how polite the business has been)
100% of smart phone apps are bad. There are NO exceptions to this, by virtue of the fact that you must own and use the smartphone to access them. We stand to lose a lot when we finally lose this fight. (and I'm sure we will)
100%?
I once published an app to help people track their budget. It didn't even request any permissions, not even internet. How is it bad?
I wrote an app for a university to let researchers track bat sightings in caves and upload it to a database for population tracking. How is it bad?
Do I need a smartphone to use it? If so, then it's bad.
I'm sorry, did you expect a smartphone app to not require a smartphone?
Should we get mad at books for requiring you to know how to read? Should we get mad at stores for requiring you to use currency to pay?
It's weird that many people don't rely not everything should be mobile-first.
Let me know when researchers want to start lugging around laptops when they go splunking in caves to record bat populations and I'll tell them about the web portal.
It's well known that bat research didn't even exist prior to 2007. Steve Jobs famously took the stage and declared, "I have finally achieved bat research!"
Citizens don't need an ETA. Only non-citizens are affected.
That's... What the article is about
But the article seems to take a very roundabout way for it, and still doesn't link the direct version. I just did the same thing, googling 'UK ETA', clicked the top result, then clicked the most salient link on the result page ('Apply'), then clicked the most salient button on the next page which is a big green 'apply now button', though it is after the links to the app (but those links are not big and green). Admittedly I do have a decent amount of experience with the UK government's website which tends to have this pattern of a few pages of explanations about the thing before you get to the form you need to fill in, but it surprises me that it was that hard to find.
(Edit: ah, no, I see: the next steps are quite dark-pattern pushing you towards the app. Yeah, that's quite shitty)
No, I think he searched for the ETA App and was disappointed at the lack of emphasis on an alternative to the app once you are in it. If you just search the web for ETA and gov.uk it takes you straight to the online portal (which also asks for feedback as it's a service in Beta). The gov.uk website is neutral between you using the app or the online portal.
The only point I can see here is that once you are in the app it keeps encouraging you to use it and doesn't keep suggesting you might like to use the online portal instead. But I don't understand the initial premise about not using app stores. If the author didn't want to use an app store, why did he download an app instead of going to gov.uk?
gov.uk is not neutral at all!
"The easiest way to apply is on the app"
"By applying on the UK ETA app you're more likely to: complete your application quicker; get a faster decision".
"You should apply online if: you cannot download the app on your phone; the person you are applying for is not with you"
All of these are things you see over the course of the THREE (!) pages between https://www.gov.uk/eta and the actual start of the online form, https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-...
It really gives you the runaround and makes it very clear than the non-app flow is a weird, second-tier option.
If you don't want to use the app, why would you search for the app?
>>> How Many Hoops Are Too Many Hoops?
>> It's really not that many hoops
> That's... What the article is about
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Or, direct: https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-...
No, that link goes to the second “download our app” screen shown in the OP.
That has a link to actually applying online.
They are definitely using a dark pattern to push people towards the app, but it is possible to apply online.
You have to click twice more (on two more web pages) that you can't/won't use the app to start the online application.
The "Start now" button ought to skip all that.
there's a lot of promoted scam tho on google. This one : https://getetauk.co.uk/fr/ got me when i was a rush at the airport and i paid 125€ for the fucking eta without confirmation
Yeah it's really overblown. I applied for an ETA online last year and it took probably about 15 min from searching for where to do it to the confirmation email dropping in. It was pretty painless, much more so than the ESTA process for travelling to the US&A and even that one isn't particularly difficult.
Its not so much the process that is the complaint here, as that the UK government is intentionally using Big Tech style anti-patterns to push engagement in a particular manner. It's a dangerous precedent (and not even close to the first time they've done similar).
> ESTA process for travelling to the US&A and even that one isn't particularly difficult
Dodging the google ads & promoted search results that take you to clones of the application form that charge 2-3x is the hardest part.
Did you even read the article and tried going through the process? Suggesting the user to download the app is front and center and the link to apply online is tucked away in a link at the bottom. Not great, but fine, I'll live with that. But that's not the end is it? The user clicks continue online application, then why does it still give you another screen nudging you towards using the app? Making users feel like they are doing something wrong by not using the app.
And of course, this is not a web app but a web site with basic HTML forms not requiring a whatng cartel web engine?
After I got Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent settled status) in the UK, I had to buy a new phone that had NFC, because the new eVisa system required me to scan the chip in my passport to link it to the system. In general, the UK retains its mildly chaotic character - the 'disorderly order' that Kate Fox frequently mentions in her book Watching the English - but the immigration system is very much being tightened up due to political sentiment.
As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
I would half like to move back to the UK, but I'm terribly worried that after jumping through all the hoops so that my EU citizen partner could come with us and be a part our children's lives that Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there). I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power is, but it sure looks like a terrible but possible future from afar. :(
All of my EU friends living in the UK have now applied for citizenship.
The risk profile for "I have indefinite leave to remain" has moved from "this won't be an issue at all" to "we have no trust in the government on this" in a few short years.
Profoundly depressing
I really cannot understand why people who are permanently settled in a country would not apply for citizenship.
It is not a matter of trust. Unless you are a citizen your right to remain in a country is always subject to the approval of the government and rules can change. it is the point of the distinction between "indefinite leave to remain" and citizenship.
I have noticed that only white people commit to living in the UK without becoming citizens. Sindhu Vee is very funny about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8DNgi5Tok4&t=90s
> I have noticed that only white people commit to living in the UK without becoming citizens.
Alas, you've not discovered a hidden pattern, except maybe a hidden pattern in the kinds of people you socialize with. Chinese nationals cannot hold dual citizenship, and renouncing their Chinese citizenship creates very serious complications, including around property and inheritance when parents die, which you would be aware of if you knew any Chinese person well enough to have had this conversation with them.
Based on gov.uk immigration system statistics data and tables, among those with indefinite leave to remain, the most likely to seek citizenship are British Overseas Citizens, Austrians and Lithuanians. The least likely are Moroccans and Venezuelans.
> The least likely are Moroccans and Venezuelans
Weird in the Venezuelans case, as there is no restrictions for double nationality and having only Venezuelan citizenship doesn't have many advantages. I would guess that it is because most Venezuelans living there already have an European passport due to parents/grandparent, so no need/can't get a third
Cannot only if the other European country does not allow dual nationality.
If they are permanently settled in the UK surely it would be better to have British citizenship rather than that of a country they do not live in?
The nationalities listed are all very small groups in the UK. maybe they are not really permanently settled? Someone who moves somewhere for work might end up living there a decade (and in the UK that would mean getting indefinite leave to remain) and then returning.
I admit not knowing a lot of Chinese nationals, but I do know a very wide range of people. Of course, issues with property and inheritance only apply to people who have sufficient for it to be a major issue.
Could you link to the stats showing that? What about all the other countries? What is the position of BNOs?
Indefinite leave to remain is not the same as permanently settled - there is a difference between long term and the rest of your life.
Apart from the fact that some countries don't allow dual citizenships so you would loose the other one:
- cost: ~2k
- time: 2 exams
- paperwork required to keep other nationalities in some cases
- after feb 2026, you can only re-enter the UK with a British passport (more cost) or with extra paperwork to enable your other passport (more costs ~500)
Countries that do not allow dual citizenship is a good reason, and maybe the cost and paperwork required by other countries (although, unless you really cannot afford it its worth getting it to cover yourself in case rules change). I did it myself.
The same goes for the cost of British citizenship. once you have it its just the cost of renewing passports (about £100/decade at current rates) for the rest of your life. That £2,000 is much less than the cost of renewing some types or residence visa and gives you the security of being a citizen.
Some countries don't allow dual citizenship, which means you'd no longer be a citizen of your country of origin, you know, where your family might live.
I have plenty of friends who otherwise would apply, and ILR should be sufficient in a democratic government following social and political contracts.
Is that true for any EU countries?
Yes: Austria and Slovakia still do, possibly others as well. And Germany only stopped preventing it within the last year or two.
The UK will help circumvent this for current British citizens when they acquire new citizenship in one of those countries (eg. America famously makes you hand over your old passport, but the UK will happily ship you a replacement in an unmarked envelope), but that doesn't really work so well in the other direction.
this was true until a few years ago for Italy and France too, getting one nationality would instantly lose you the other. I think this isn't true anymore, but I do have a friend who lived in the country for decades and never picked up the nationality because of this.
Cost is a big reason.
My personal reason is that I travel a lot, so I never meet the physical presence within the country requirements.
Unless something major happens I'm almost certain they'll either win the next election or be part of a coalition.
About the only thing that can stop them is the Tories holding onto relevance enough to split their vote again.
It’s not likely at all that they’ll win the next election lmao.
I think you are worrying too much and a lot of this is media hype. Their main focus is small boats and people entering the country illegally. If they do restrict them more you are almost certainly better off getting your partner a visa before (but I think you would need to marry to get a spouse visa though).
> Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there)
I think that is an exaggerated view from a distance. I see no evidence they can do that, or want to. At the time of the Brexit campaign Farage said he wanted skilled immigrants (he gave the example of Indian doctors immigrating in the 1970s as the wort of thing he wanted). Nor can the country afford to lose skilled people. Its worth remembering that Reform would not agree to what Elon Musk wanted in return for funding so I think its safe to assume Reform would not be as extreme as the current US government.
I am of foreign birth, as is my younger daughter (she was born abroad) and I am not particularly worried. I would worry if Rupert Lowe's Restore party started making gains, or Ben Habib's Advance party.
> I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power
They are doing well in the polls now but my feeling is they are peaking. Letting on too many Conservative defectors makes them look at lot less of an anti-establishment party (a huge part of their appeal) and they are becoming too extreme (I think in reaction to the splash, mostly on social media) made by Advance and Restore (one of those is what Elon Musk endorses, so that gives you an idea where they are).
The government can very easily change your status from "legal" to "illegal" by flipping a bit. And the newspapers, who are driving this, don't care about skills, they care about the raw numbers. The members of the public driving this don't even care about immigration status, but skin colour.
They can change people's status, but I am saying they will not. It is not Reform party policy (as Rupert Lowe keeps pointing out!) and it would be disastrous to do it.
The net immigration numbers are falling!
I disagree about the public. Its very clear that the opposition to immigration is almost entirely about small boats and illegal entry.
As for skin colour, of the tiny number or racists I have heard of in real life, one comment repeated back to me made it clear the person involved preferred at least some Asians (those with skills etc.) to Eastern Europeans.
> Its very clear that the opposition to immigration is almost entirely about small boats and illegal entry.
No, that's just the current talking point.
A decade ago, small boats not in the news, somehow managed to still be a big talking point on Brexit campaign. Worse, part of the Brexit campaign was scare-mongering that the EU had made it so the UK had no control over its borders, no control over its immigration laws, and even had one poster further scare-mongering that the UK would be forced to allow in the entire population of Turkey* even though Turkey wasn't actually in the EU nor did anyone think it would get in any time soon and the UK had a veto on expansion anyway (plus the more fundamental pretentiousness in thinking they'd want to come en-masse anyway, given that Turkish people are like everyone else, in that almost none of them really care for the idea of moving to the UK).
Even for "unlawful entry" of asylum seekers who were still allowed to lawfully claim asylum, the UK was part of the Dublin III system, which oh-so-conveniently meant the UK could argue that all the other countries most people would need to go through to get to the UK should have taken them first, to which I'd like to say this:
J'ai obtenu la note D au GCSE de français, et pourtant j'ai étudié la langue à l'école. À votre avis, comment un demandeur d'asile lambda originaire de l'ancien Empire britannique va-t-il s'en sortir?
Most asylum seekers do, in fact, stop at the first safe country; the UK has always only had a tiny fraction of the total, and loses its collective mind anyway.
* Note my careful phrasing and also their careful phrasing in this specific ad; they note the population to give the implication, I did not say they said all of them will come in**, only that they said all of them must be allowed to, when EU membership never did any such thing: https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-brexit-turkey-loses-its-bi... and https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/07/facebook-relea...
** apparently one of the "senior Brexiteers" did, but I can't trivially find any actual citation and don't care to put in the effort to look harder
Are you aware that Rupert Lowe was kicked out of Reform?
We heard all of that in the US before ICE.
Lots of things are disasterous to do, and still UK has a proud traditions of doing those things.
Have you ever spoken to any member of the public in support of Reform to base your opinions on, or is this just similar to when every single brexit voters (millions of people) was assumed to be racist and uneducated
Almost everyone voting Brexit was uneducated on the issues, a fact rapidly borne out by actually speaking to them. Actually "uneducated" is quite charitable as quite a lot are racist also. I don't know how anyone can claim otherwise with a straight face.
Which issues were they uneducated on? How many did you speak to, and I'm not talking about the engagement-bait bots on places like the Trending side of Twitter
A lot of Republican supporters would have, and still might, insist that the US's current purge is focused on "criminals" despite the quota-driven shitfest it's become. People say a lot of things, and they rarely line up with policies in practice.
Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/22/reform-uk-i...
This could easily be copied and pasted from the replies to people who were worried about the rise of facism in the US a couple of years ago.
For what it’s worth I’ve had zero problems thus far (under eu settled scheme)
They have missed the EU settled scheme so its going to have to be a normal visa - so either the partner has to be skilled or wealthy enough to qualify, or it has to be a spouse visa.
Ah right. Well there are changes incoming shortly for that which could either be favourable or not depending on partners circumstances. Eg there is a high earner thing that shortens path etc
As a brit also watching from afar...
It does seem scarily likely, but he still has a few years to really screw things up before we get there. Fingers crossed.
Without a large-scale cock-up, I don't see Starmer as inspiring enough to stop him unfortunately. Lets hope someone else steps up to the plate with a bit more charisma.
If (more likely when but gotta stay optimistic) the fascists do take power there will be people that fight. There already are so many people standing up. My recommendation for a non-brit would unfortunately be to avoid moving to anywhere that could be classified as Little England. I'm fortunate enough to live in the bubble that is the "UKs happiest city", and while you cant pretend racism / xenophobia are extinct here, people do stick up for eachother and mind their own businesses. The UK is great, even so for immigrants, its just finding those pockets of tolerance and kindness in an ever growing sea of shite. British people need to focus on rebuilding our strong local communities that were smashed by Thatcher, and then this too shall pass.
Its funny how all the racism is happening somewhere else in the country, but very few people experience it themselves. Survey data supports this.
I have lived in several parts of the UK, have friends in many more. I currently live in a very white village. I am visible ethnic minority. I see no sign of racism. I know of a few overt racists at second or third hand (they know someone who knows someone I know).
There is lots of racism on social media, but even most of that is in reaction to ragebait posts, some posted by people who are not even British.
That's great for you! Not sure a single anecdotal experience outweighs the measurable rise in race related crime and the systemic issues that have long been present. Add onto that the sheer number of people who voted reform at the last election, and their pretty stellar local election performance thats forecast to only improve. Then cherry on top it with the anti-migrant rhetoric pushed by the majority of British news firms that has undoubtedly ended up influencing some pretty diabolical policy decisions (Rwanda, changes to student visas, leaving the EU when the leave side campaigned on an almost solely anti-migrant platform). And I guess were just ignoring the actual fascist marches in London over the past couple of years? Or the burning of hotels housing refugees? You can bury your head in the sand if you want, and I really am glad you're not suffering, but people are. Them today, you tomorrow.
https://www.gov.uk/evisa/set-up-ukvi-account suggests that there's other options if you can't use the app.
> As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
They might tell you that, but that does not mean its true. IMO they do not care about dependence on American services. It is very much Somebody Else's Problem.
"need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government"
Generally, this is called a vassal state. Better to keep overlords happy.
> they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
They'd tell you that, but they would be lying.
One of the more fun related items...
You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.
On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...
It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.
Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.
(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).
And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.
Some British women now find themselves in a Kafkaesque situation where the UK home office refuses to renew or grant them a UK passport, because their foreign passport is under a different name. (Greece and Spain are mentioned in [1], but I know people in France affected by this)
Where previously these women could at least travel to their birth country to visit dying relatives on their foreign passport, they are now locked out waiting two months for a £600 entitlement certificate. Meanwhile, non-British visitors can just pay £16 for an ETA on this whizzy app.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/16/border-rule...
While this is a real problem and I do have relative who had this issue like this there are ways to get new UK passport without paying £600 or changing legal name in other country.
It's just take digging in government rules and arguing. As long as it's not the first UK passport it's doable.
I'd love to hear any advice on that!
My friend went round and round and sent many documents back and forth for over a year trying to renew her British passport, to no eventual avail. UK authorities were extremely unsympathetic and unhelpful. The offending "misnamed" foreign passport was long expired and French authorities required a valid British passport to renew it - she was left without any passport at all for over a year, until the French took pity and provided an alternate path to renew her French passport.
Hey. I will ask how exactly it was solved and try to reply here in a day or two. My relative is woman so problem was that she had her original name in a passport from country of origin and UK passport had her name after marriage.
> It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it
This is a pretty common practice for most countries.
Sure, but it was a change that was slipped through under the radar without any proper justification for it (the situation wasn't even clarified for dual nationals until quite close to the deadline).
I'd have thought the justification was fairly obvious in that they can keep a better eye on British passport holders
Amazingly obvious to jamespo is not normally the standard by which new immigration rules are introduced.
Isn’t one of the use cases to help determine tax domiciles?
UK isn’t the only country that does this.
eg South Africa allows dual but you’re not allowed to use the other passport at border or within country.
I can kinda understand it from give perspective. Harder to track people when they switch constantly. People flying in on one passport and out with the other etc
Most countries require their own dual-nationality citizens to enter on their local passports not foreign ones, Britain was an exception before. It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport, and I say this as someone affected.
> It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport
Why? What legitimate purpose does this serve?
Counting the sheep in the herd.
Even if one takes this as legitimate, the "foreign" passport gives enough information already (otherwise they couldn't prevent me from acquiring an ETA with it).
Keeping track of which of your citizens are outside of the country. Ensuring the state knows you are a citizen and should be treated as such.
France had a weird issue recently about the media talking for ages about someone who committed a crime while the state had asked for him to be deported months before on the basis of his foreign passport and it took weeks for someone to finally notice that the guy was actually French. It made the police looks clownish.
That's your guess. The UK authorities have never given this reason.
You were asking for legitimate purposes. That's some of them.
I asked for the purpose. You guessed at the purpose. those are different.
I've read the issue is that some countries require you to renounce your previous nationality to get citizenship, and people have taken advantage of not needing a British passport by lying about renouncing their British citizenship.
I've seen claims this technique was actually recommended by the British consulate, no idea if that's true.
> I've read the issue is that some countries require you to renounce your previous nationality to get citizenship, and people have taken advantage of not needing a British passport by lying about renouncing their British citizenship.
Oh that's an interesting little loophole that might be a[nother] reason. A handful of EU member states disallow dual citizenship, so those taking advantage of "EU and British" might be impacted by this.
Found the article, it was Spain specifically that requires it https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/13/dual-nation...
ok, did not know that, every day is a school day!
But hey the sensationalist comment you originally posted gets your lots of upvotes…
One of my former colleagues would refer to this as "introducing an unnecessary constraint"
Additionally: An Irish passport gets you into the UK just as well as a UK one does.
This new rule might be problematic for those Northern Irish people who identify solely as Irish (as is their right under the Good Friday Agreement) and who only hold an Irish passport: unless things have changed since the DeSouza case [0], the UK Government and UK law treat everyone born in Northern Ireland (as long as at least one of their parents meets citizenship or residency requirements) as a British citizen, regardless of their opinions on the matter. The UK Government holds that this is compatible with the GFA because you can renounce your British citizenship; but you have to pay hundreds of pounds to do so.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza
Small point, if you're traveling from republic of Ireland you don't practically need a passport or an ETA, you can just drive over the invisible border
Why does the title say "You better have a ... account" when the end of the article is literally a link to the form which does not require an account? I agree that the UI here is bad, but I feel like the title is just misrepresenting the content of the article.
(article author here): It's over the top from my annoyed reaction when I encountered the clickthrough. I am mostly annoyed at how much EU governments keep pushing native apps for government services, thus making them dependent on Google/Apple. The fallback exists here, but it is very much not what you are encouraged to use.
I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
It doesn’t really seem like humorous hyperbole, though. It’s currently just factually incorrect. And it’s in your power to fix it, especially if you agree now in retrospect!
Not sure I can change the submission anymore. I am happy with the title as it is for my own blog, it just created some irritation here.
I am not a native speaker, so my interpretation might be wrong, but I tried to evoke the semi-serious but good-natured "You went to the bakery? You better brought me a snack as well!" meaning with "better have", not the "must have" meaning.
> EU governments
The UK left the EU a while ago. UK citizens traveling to the EU will require an ETIAS authorization which also comes with an app at the end of the year, but that's not live yet. The website that's been prepared so far does mention the ability to file online, though.
Yeah, sorry. I am old and like the UK, so I still consider them Europeans at heart.
Unusability is just another form of impossibility.
It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue.
/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.
Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass.
For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
Which is funny because for years they'd gleefully charge you 30 quid to print one at the airport if you dared to turn up with only a PDF.
Just one more reason to boycott Ryanair
I mean they're the discount bus of the skies, designed for students and people on weekend breaks inter-EU. Avoid flying to Paris (Buvais) or certain other 'city' airports, keep your carry-on luggage within limits, and they're basically fine.
They've a safety record that's beyond reproach, and where else are you going to get flights for ~€50 across Europe?
If nothing else they disrupted a predatory pricing cartel. I'm old enough to remember when a flight England->Ireland or Spain->Portugal could be the guts of €300 or €400. Now we have a complete revision on pricing and it paved the way for multiple good budget carriers like Transavia.
Not to mention Michael O'Leary being an absolute rogue with his PR - particularly the recent spat with Elon Musk
https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/01/21/big-idiot-boost...
I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app.
This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.
I never install any apps, I just show the pdf
The thing about mobile apps is that majority of people likely prefer it.
Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing)
Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone).
As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app.
And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible.
The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.
Use of an app is not necessarily the problem. Requiring Google Play or the App Store is. We should be able to use apps without being in walled gardens.
More and more things require a Google-certified Android phone (and will not work with jailbroken/rooted phones, unlocked bootloader, and so one : banking apps of course, but also medical apps (e.g. Doctolib in France), ID apps (e.g. France identité), and a lot more. This "digital sovereignity" hype makes me laugh since in practice government apps are literally enforcing Google locks, effectively excluding people using LineageOS/MicroG and other similar open roms.
The most important part was left out: was the application successful in the end, and how long did it take?
It's a quite straightforward use - few minutes, it uses NFC to the passport, it's very organized and well guided... except
you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
This is a common problem. I have it everywhere I go when I take my kids on holiday. Particularly ticket machines where you have to buy multiple tickets and can't add more than one to a transaction (Maltese buses are a good one).
I don't get the problem with my credit card. Might just be switching cards until you find one that isn't crap.
I encountered this on the NYC subway trying to buy 4 metrocards with one credit card. No bueno.
Indeed, it could be a common issues. Some places transposition systems even allow use of bank cards as 'ticket'
Yeah I'm in London so that's what we use here. But a lot of the European transport systems just chuck it through as a single transaction so if you buy three tickets it looks like repeated attempts to transact and is blocked.
Athens is another one that got me last year.
Funny - both London and Athens were in my mind when I wrote the comment.
I guess you could create a few virtual cards and use those.
I'm guessing this is your card bouncing a repeat purchase from the same vendor with the same value
That I'd not know, although it'd be very uncommon and has not happened. In the EU 3ds is a very standard process, the the payments require an explicit approval (national id cards/smartid, etc.)
3DS also requires a smartphone app, at least at my bank
Yeah weird, I've seen some vendors reject the purchase even after a successful 3ds validation, looks like something in the vendor/payment processor (rather than the bank) side
Did it recently, took 3min to receive confirmation, the warning it might take longer than on the app is bollocks.
Hey some minister signed off a multimillion pound deal to get that app developed (to a firm that definitely no one in his family or business circles has stakes in), so we better get our money's worth!
In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.
On the other hand, Indians are rejoicing that this might actually be much easier for us. We will still be going through the Visa Application, but we will get the digital version of the e-visa (I read that a physical copy can also be printed).
In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability.
https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.
You better also have a UK phone number ready!
We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants.
We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.
This is not a normal occurrence and to be honest it’s surprising that these places had no way to book online
A year or two ago I had a similar issue booking to see a Broadway show in NYC... baffling because surely a large percentage of their custom is international tourists. It must have been some kind of temporary glitch, but we had to do something else in the end.
Such a strange behavior did you find out what the reason was? I bet this is not a secret deal with the phone service providers
We assumed that they charge some kind of penalty fee if you do not show up via your phone number, and this (most likely 3rd party) system only works with UK numbers.
There's no such service, and it's very unlikely that there ever would be given the attitude of the UK telecoms regulator.
There are things like premium rate phone lines (which you can dial for entering competitions) and special SMS short codes that allow you to send small amounts which get charged to your phone bill (typically used for charity campaigns - eg. "Text 'GIVE £5' to 71234").
But both of those systems require you to take specific action - there's nothing that would allow someone else to apply a charge to your bill on your behalf without your direct involvement. OfCom would have kittens if anyone were ever to suggest setting up something like that.
It's likely that the restaurants in this case were simply confused by a number starting with a + rather than a digit.
eSIM apps are available on the app store where you can purchase an eSIM in any country these days.
I've never got a number with them though. I know some of them do, but not all. I did find an app that gave me a voip number when I was in Canada which was handy.
It's probably to be able to text you 'your table is ready' kind of thing.
Glad to see this posted - I have a UK trip coming up in a few months, and as a conscientious objector to the smartphone duopoly, this article will save me some irritation.
And they still try to pressure you to scan your face.
Step 2 is scan your face, step 3 is upload a photo of yourself. They seem to be the same thing.
The scan phase is proof of liveness. Photo is a still image.
for visa, multiple pictires.
for visa, at least when I did it, multiple pictures and full sets of all fingerprints.
Visited the UK recently and had to obviously go through the same thing; had to click "I just want to use the online thing" 3 times. Was very frustrating.
Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app.
It's quite bleak.
A related thing that bugs me is how many scam search results come up and are prioritised if you search for "uk eta" or similar. On google for me the real site is sandwiched in positon 4 after 3 and before 2 additional paid sponsored scam sites each with large block sections in the search results.
Scammers pay the the same good money for advertising space as legitimate companies. Google can profit from it, so there's no incentive to kick bad actors of their advertising platform.
Google makes money from the scam sites, but not from the government.
Much the same with the US ESTA requirement.
I miss the good old green Visa Waiver forms that we had to illegibly scribble on during the flight over :)
Does the UK force you to disclose years worth of private messaging and social media history at the immigration checkpoint? If not, no American should be opining about this.
Aside from this app issue there's another instance of bloody minded bureacracy that affects dual citizens:
As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500.
Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation.
I hate paperwork...
if you enter a country whose citizenship you have you must always enter with the travel document or proof of citizenship of that country. no exceptions. that is a global convention. using a foreign document is most likely a violation of the law. (there may be exceptions in some countries that don't issue passports abroad).
that waiver document is ridiculous though. what does it cost to get a new passport at a british embassy? as a german i can get a temporary passport within a day at any german embassy for about 30€ or 60€. enough to travel back home.
> if you enter a country whose citizenship you have you must always enter with the travel document or proof of citizenship of that country. no exceptions.
Completely untrue. I have done so perfectly legally.
It's not a law in either the US or UK as far as I know, but both countries always got pissed off at you if they figured it out. I know because I've been lectured by border-officers on both ends before :)
"Pissed off" here meaning that you were likely to get "randomly selected" for secondary screening.
It absolutely has been the convention that you use the local form of identity if you have one. This ETA issue is just them pushing that a bit harder.
> It's not a law in either the US or UK
This changed on Feb 25, 2026 for the UK. :)
UK citizens must now enter on their UK passport (or a citizenship certificate thing + foreign passport), and are not eligible for visa waiver programs (because they're only eligible for people using certain passports, which UK citizens obviously now can't be using).
I was announced in Nov '25, and has cause a mad scramble for lots of people as the passport office has been massively backlogged by the predictable queue of people needing passports suddenly, when they didn't need them before.
It's 100% illegal to present a non-US passport at the US border if you are US citizen.
The law is 8 U.S.C. 1185 - "it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid United States passport."
In the past, the penalty for violating this has generally just been "a stern talking to," like you said. But no guarantees on that.
Can confirm that UK immigration was annoyed by it, but it was perfectly legal nonetheless.
This changed on 25/2/26. See my comment above.
>document is most likely a violation of the law.
A violation of what law?
> no exceptions. that is a global convention
Bullshit. Each country makes their own rules on this (being a sovereign country) and there is absolutely not a “global convention”
My wife moved to Belgium for me 8 years ago and also has dual citizenship. She assumed it would be fine to travel on Belgium passport + ETA but that's not allowed.
She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute.
Silly system.
My native-Swedish friends all complain about the bureaucracy here, but it is so much more efficient than the British stuff.
Some of that, though, is a side-effect of the ubiquitous "Bank ID" identity tool - which suffers from the same dependency on Apple/Google that the article complains about. Given the current political climate I think the EU is going to have to figure something out to address this sort of thing.
> Silly system.
Frankly it strikes me as being rather silly to not have a British passport as a British citizen.
It costs money and my European passport is far more useful to me.
The cost of a passport is negligible (~£10 per year on average), and it’s not reasonable to expect the UK to spend a lot of money architecting the system around a very small minority of dual citizens who don’t have passports.
Why should any special architecting be required given that I am an EU citizen with an EU passport. On the contrary, effort was expended to prevent me from obtaining an ETA to no purpose that has ever been justified.
Yes, I personally am not deeply inconvenienced by this, but that doesn't make it ok. Others are on much tighter budgets than me.
then relinquish your citizenship.
If obtaining a passport from a country where you are a citizen is such a hassle for you, you must focus on the only logical solution.
I have seen this complaint a lot but I think it is misplaced because it is frankly common sense to keep an update-to-date passport of the country you are a citizen of... People will have to apply for a passport and be done with it, nothing to see here...
Also, I suppose that the complaint comes only from people who live in countries that have visa-free travel to the UK and/or EU countries and who were just saving a little/money hassle otherwise they would already have an up-to-date British passport.
Yeah, I really don't get this complaint either.
I'm a dual US/UK citizen, and the US has always required citizens to present their US passport to enter the US. The UK is doing the same. It's not a big ask.
It's a big change and not one that's been justified.
Most years I don't visit the UK. My european passport is far more useful to me.
Note that this is an active change to the status quo. Up to and including today I had no need for my UK passport when entering the UK on my Swedish passport. From tomorrow I cannot do that and there's no reasonable explanation given for why this must change.
Edit: And while obviously this is not a big deal for me financially, there are a bunch of pensioners in the 3 million Brits living abroad and for many of them the £100 fee is a significant and unnecessary outlay.
Well exactly what I wrote, then... visa-free travel and saving a little money/hassle by not keeping an up-to-date British passport.
Nothing to complain about, really.
Yes, changes to the long standing status quo affecting 3 million people with no justification given, nothing to complain about. Sheesh.
The title suggests the app is required. The article clearly shows it's a few prompts, each with secondary ~"continue without the app" links.
I get the annoyance of being asked multiple times, but it's not that bad.
This is a bit rich given the draconian rules the EU is now imposing on brits. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24xyjplp4o
- a remainer
I am the author and I love the UK, am sad about you leaving, and I am as angry about similar practices in EU countries. My gripe is with the pushing of foreign controlled apps, not the immigration rules.
I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
keep up the anger! EU is the only hope for non-US domination
I feel like this is so much of an overreaction to a non-issue.
The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options.
It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).
There should always be web fallbacks for those opposed to smartphones or unable to use them. Insisting the elderly use them for any type of bureaucratic flow results too often in stress and confusion.
> There should always be web fallbacks for those opposed to smartphones or unable to use them.
And there is a web fallback. And it's right there on the page. Honestly, I think they did a pretty good job.
>The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. I
I think that about a lot of the cancellation flows posted on here that people consider "dark patterns". Skip an upsell or two, decline a pause offer, bam, cancellation page.
This is an insane take. Apple and Google both reserve the right to deny accounts to people without any legal appeal at worst. At best, a legal dispute would have to be resolved in US courts. How other countries (including my own) accept that as a condition to use public services is beyond belief, and pointing this out is not an overreaction.
Why are we willingly placing private companies – private companies subject to foreign jurisdictions, even! – in the role of gatekeepers of public services? We have surely completely lost our minds!
You can literally just use the online form. Have you actually tried using your search engine to query applying, and seeing just how easy it is to optionally apply online?
Over half of the world’s population is using an Android or iOS device. Most people visiting a country in the UK or have the means to afford a trip, most likely have a functioning mobile phone.
I find it somewhat amusing you think I’m “insane” for suggesting most of the modern world has a relatively accessible Android or iOS device to apply for a visa.
> You can literally just use the online form. Have you actually tried using your search engine to query applying, and seeing just how easy it is to optionally apply online?
This whole story is about how they're trying to pressure you into using the app.
> Over half of the world’s population is using an Android or iOS device. Most people visiting a country like the UK or have the means to afford a trip, most likely have a functioning mobile phone.
That does not in any way affect any of what I wrote. I'll try to write it differently: Do you think it's OK that Google and Apple decide (at worst on their very own without oversight, at best with the oversight of a foreign country that isn't the one you're travelling to or from) who gets to do these things and under what conditions?
> I find it someone amusing you think I’m “insane” for suggesting most of the modern world has a relatively accessible android or iOS device to apply for a visa.
I find it insane that you think that because Google and Apple happen to grace most people with access to Android and iOS, then it's fine that we all live by their mercy.
I’m sorry but I can’t respond further, conversation is going nowhere. You clearly have it out for Apple and Google, and you are not being “pressured” into doing anything.
Critical reading and thinking would lead you through the flow to click on the “continue application online” form.
Here’s my workflow:
- Visit the main ETA site: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
- You scroll down just a teeny tiny bit until you see “Apply online”
- You select “Start now”
- Submit
I thought so too, but if you follow the 'start now' link you get a page full of trying to push you to use the app, then if you say you cannot all the way at the bottom, then you get another page trying to help you with installing the app, then you actually get the form. I'm quite disappointed, usually the UK government digital services are not quite so user-hostile.
There is also a new UK government requirement to verify your identity if you are a director or significant shareholder in a UK company.
The online route for that goes through a couple of pages then says "now switch to the app on your smartphone". In theory you can also go to a Post Office to get your documents checked but it didn't work for me.
It's insane that multi trillion government would rely on a foreign private entity for something so simple yet critical. The only sane answer here is corruption.
I actually don't think it's corruption. I think it's incompetence. But that might be even harder to overcome.
But why do they need to make a native app for that? It makes no sense.
Convenience. Do you travel with a laptop and open it to scan your boarding pass pdf also?
It's more convenient to open a website than it is to install an app.
Providing it for convenience is fine. Having to accept the terms of conditions of Google or Apple as the only way is insane.
Don’t accept the terms then? What is even the point of this comment when you are provided with an alternative as you make your way through the form.
I feel like everyone I’m responding to just hates Apple/Google and is running GrapheneOS without play services so they hate public apps.
No, installing apps is just genuinely bad UX, at least for me, because my password manager doesn't work in apps, and I have to manually generate and copy and paste password. If creators of the app are extra stupid, they make it so that you cannot paste into the password input, so I have to enter the generated password character by character.
You use a broken password manager, and you think this is a problem with _apps_?
And why is it broken? Is there a way for a password manager app to somehow inspect other apps and identify forms within them and interact with the forms?
...yes? I can't tell if you're trolling at this point or genuinely unaware.
Both iOS and Android have APIs for this, you (as the app developer) just mark the relevant fields in the app as login/password/etc, and the OS will interact with your chosen password manager to autofill and/or save them.
Well then I don't know whom to blame, 1Password or app developers not marking the fields correctly.
If you've never seen this work on your device, then you might have something configured incorrectly — many app developers are incompetent and bad at this; but not _all_ of them.
It works for filling an existing password, but not for creating a new one, iOS still prompts me to fill existing even though I'm on the sign up page. On the web 1Password can also automatically generate a Fastmail masked email address, but I doubt there's any hope for that to work in a native app.
> Can you spot where you would find alternatives to using the app on this page?
I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.
Would someone briefly explain the real reason why, for the ETA?
I call BS. The title is incorrect, and the contents are deceptive.
If you visit the gov.uk page from a mobile, you get a suggestion for the app.
If you visit on _desktop_, you get https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply ( reached from https://www.gov.uk/eta ) which offers app and online (browser) options just beneath each other.
Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).
(article author here): The big green "Start Now" button on https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply takes me to the same double push-for-the-app flow in the article (on desktop firefox). But otherwise true, should probably have searched for "UK ETA", but coming from the announcement, that is very clear you need the app, searching for "UK ETA App" felt natural.
I accept your rebuttal. Not needing to apply for an ETA myself, I found the big green button and stopped there.
There is a link that says “I cannot use the app” and at the bottom of the page there is “Apply online instead” which takes you here, and you just press next:
https://apply-for-an-eta.homeoffice.gov.uk/apply/electronic-...
Sure but if you click on the "online one" you still have to skip two pages offering you to use the app instead. The same pages you see in the article.
If you are on a mobile browser, yeah - it pushes you towards the app. But if you are on a desktop browser, you can find the link fairly directly.
As of six months ago the non-smartphone flow did not work. Totally unsurprising for the UK, of course.
The gov.uk designs are usually good, but this one... I had friend coming to visit from overseas and they were unable to fill it in. It's too confusing. So the visit is postponed.
Wallet codes bought at local monetary terminals to increase the balance of an account seems to be the less too much 'insecure' way to do things and to stay away from a hard dependency on whatng cartel web engines.
"Scan your face with your device, if it has a camera."
And if my device doesn't have a camera I don't need to scan my face? wtf?
Completely agree. I had to apply for the ETA recently and the experience is terrible.
"If you want to receive emails, you better have a Gmail or Outlook"
(author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha?
A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
I hope you take my feedback with an open mind as I don't mean anything personal. Your article is an example of people who look at things through their own lens rather than the general one.
I'm certain 95% of the population would be using Apple or Android, and the instructions on the Gov UK site are made for the majority, not for the edge cases.
My comment falls exactly within that, for most people, they define email as Gmail or Outlook. There are people who use Proton, iCloud, or personal domain emails, but the instructions will always mention what the average person would know and identify.
I can understand the feedback and I agree if you are building a product, you want to make it easy to use and intuitive for the majority. In my opinion, as a government you have an obligation to create processes differently though. You should provide and focus on a flow that is 100% in your/the citizens control with the messaging to match.
So in your email example, I think the governments messaging must be neutrally on email (and arguably the government should provide free Email accounts to citizens), but they could add convenience buttons to open GMail or similar.
But I recognize my opinion is probably an outlier, especially on hackernews. I can see your point as well and taken with an open mind :).
You joke, but this is something of a concern now that self hosting email is quite difficult (both for incoming spam and getting blocked as a spammer yourself).
No worries! The UK government has, just like all EU governments, announced again and again how they're going to become completely independent of US and China. Software. Hardware. Everything. This is just yet another example of that.
(another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification)
This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway.
I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ...
I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it.
It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old. It's often 2-4 clicks to get to the /actual/ thing you want, with many long pages of "ok here's what this thing is. Here's what will happen next".
(Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !)
So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk
I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening
> 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it
Not just 89 year old you. Also, you on a bad day when you were ill/had 5 hours of sleep/were distracted.
Interacting with other governments feels like a minefield designed to catch you out, in comparison.
Funny you say that, I actually just did a company tax return and confirmation statement a couple of days in the midst of bad COVID (2 hours sleep per night) and I was still annoyed about the multi-step process:
1) gov.uk, search for 'file confirmation statement'
2) Despite there being a sole autocomplete result and clicking on it, taken to the search results page
3) Click the first result. Turns out it's the guidance page
4) Go back, click the second result. We're getting warmer
5) Click "Start Now"
6) Get redirected to the 'Sign in to WebFiling' landing page. You can't actually sign on on this page.
7) Click 'Continue'
8) Another landing/explainer page! ("We're taking you to GOV.UK One Login to sign in to this service")
9) Click 'Go to GOV.UK One Login'
10) You think we're done yet? Think again. Another landing page!
11) Click "Sign in"
12) Think they'd let you just enter an email and password on one page? Nope! Enter email
13) Click Continue
14) Enter password
Finally...
No idea how anyone who doesn't work for GDS can justify this. It's mad
It's a bug when you're neither 5 nor 89 or have used it 10 times before...
Look, I know it's a hard problem, and GDS have a lot of talented, smart people. I appreciate making something work for both an 18 year old and an 89 year old is a hard requiement.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with having those help docs easily available so you can read at your leisure, rather than being 'forced' to wade through it each time
Perhaps we can agree to disagree that it's not a 'bug' based on the Government's general approach to how it treats its citizens and what it deems as a requirement (as compared to eg the Netherlands/Germany which is a bit more 'it's not our fault you're stupid', 'go read the docs!')
It’s important to be empathetic here to how difficult these things can be for less tech literate people.
Adding more guidance and nudges doesn’t prevent capable users from succeeding, it just annoys them. But it means the lowest common denominators have a higher chance to succeed, which is much more valuable than level of annoyance.
And that’s pretty the point of accessibility.
No, the GDS should definitely replace all services on gov.uk to be only accessible via MCP. "Claude, I've logged into PayPal via oAuth, now renew my passport" /s
Hahaha that’s hilarious. I bet someone tried to sell them that already.
They call it content design [1] and I love it! I've lived in a few countries, and gov.uk is by far the easiest way to interact with the government that I've experienced. As an immigrant, it can be confusing to navigate a new country's legal idiosyncrasies, so I appreciate them dumbing it down for me.
Although, I'll have to admit it's been getting worse lately. My latest annoyance is the "GOV.UK One Login" they introduced in addition to the existing "Government Gateway" login. I never know which I'm supposed to use on which page, and some pages accept either. Not great UX.
1: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design
This feels super unfair to the gov.uk experience design which for me stands out head and shoulders above any other web workflow delivered by the public sector I've ever come across.
Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.
In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.
Finally, this:
> a party in power famous for paternalism
is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
You're trying to paint me as someone who hates the whole gov.uk experience - which is not what I wrote or implied
I'm allowed to be frustrated and to criticise it - I'm a tax-paying British citizen.
> is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
It's sequitous and highly relevant as GDS is part of the Government. Your comment just reads like a reflexive defensive reply by someone who can't stand any criticism of something they personally like.
It's not sequitous mate.
The idea that a Labour Secretary of State would be phoning up the Cabinet Office screaming down the phone at them about interaction design on the website while a Tory one would just have their feet up is ludicrous and you know it.
I can’t figure out what you’re complaining about, why would it be a bad thing that it explains everything super clearly?
I’ve had only good experiences with gov.uk while I was living there, It’s significantly better than my home country’s digital infrastructure.
Imagine you go into a shop to buy a newspaper every day. And every day, the shop owner explains to you what a newspaper is, what it usually contains, how much it costs, and how to read it
Is that excellent interaction design and good customer service? (edit: not a rhetorical question fwiw)
Government services need to be as easily accessible and clear to understand as possible, they may be used by the elderly, people with learning disabilities or people who don’t speak the language of the country that well (like those who would want to enter it for tourism as in TFA) - designing them with the assumption that the user is a 5 year old who needs everything explained to them in simple terms is a good approach.
The fact that it’s slightly more tiring for users like you who already know all the details and just want to get to the point is at most a minor drawback that’s easily justifiable by the accessibility gains.
To answer your question specifically: No, for a newspaper vendor that’s not great interaction design, but if you replace newspaper with any government service and shop owner with the government, it sounds perfect to me. I also struggle to imagine a scenario in which you’d need to access those services every single day, but I may be missing something there.
Do you not get how awful of an analogy that is? You're implying you cant move forward until that explanation process is done. Last I checked you've got a finger and scroll wheel at your disposal.
Analogies aren't perfect by definition (it doesn't imply that, btw, you're reaching). Anyway, it's a weak reply to attack the analogy rather than the thought behind it.
I notice you're not the person I asked btw. No need to start a vendetta just because I have a different opinion about one aspect of gov.uk. That's a bad look, for you.
Ah apologies, I didn't realise there was an unwritten rule that replying to posts on a discussion forum wasn't allowed...
lol, sad - just trying to derail the conversation and attack me rather than engage in decent conversation.
Congratulations, you're a lot smarter than the average person. I understand this is sometimes a bit annoying, but at the end of the day it's probably something to be grateful for.
Awful take. Other than the broken mess that is One Login the whole gov.uk setup is a breath of fresh air compared to most countries online government services.
It's incredibly hard to cater for a wide audience, and they do it pretty damn well. Just because you fit in the "I know what I'm doing category" it doesn't mean they should strip away all the bits that help those not in that category.
I’m sorry but this is an awful take. gov.uk’s design is excellent, probably the best government interface in the world. My friends from other European countries are literally shocked at how easy things are to do (often, tasks that in their countries would require going to some bureaucrat _in person_ and waiting hours, sometimes multiple times).
Pay? WTF? I wanted to visit friends there, but I'm not going to pay some highwayman.
The EU is launching a similar scheme that costs €20 to apply for: https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias
yeah, but I got the impression that the EU is very much doing it as a retaliation to the US and UK doing it. Tho they could have limited it to just those countries.
The US, maybe. But wiki suggests ETIAS (the EU one) was proposed in 2016 whereas the UK ETA idea was created around 2023, so ETIAS can't be a reaction to ETA - perhaps the other way round?
I'm not sure if, without Brexit, the UK would have ended up with ETIAS anyway - it's a "mostly Schengen but not exactly" thing so it would have depended on what agreement they came to.
You're right, I misremembered the order in which I learned about these things as the order in which they were announced.
(lol, I sound like an LLM apologizing for getting something wrong but I promise I'm human :) )
My impression was that the EU did it to prevent people doing visa-free layovers from claiming asylum, while the UK did it to negotiate a dual exception with the EU in the future.
ETA is a visa to the entire world in all but name. I'm not looking forward to the future where every county implements is and visa-free travel becomes a thing of the past.
> UK customs shits in you shoes?? WTF!
>> EU customs also shits in your shoes
oh no, basic border security!
Which was all started by the US' ESTA back in 2009, which I believe now costs $40.
Have you filled one out lately? The questions have got a bit wild.
The US also incurs a toll of $40 for visitors using ESTA.
I wish countries would stop trying to be cute with names like ESTA, KETA, ETA, etc and call it what it is: an evisa. These countries lie and say "don't worry bro you don't need a visa bro. Just ride that plane bro. it's free bro.", then you find out there's some government portal that runs 9-5 local time five days a week (holidays off) and requires a $X fee every submission with a chance of failing for a random reason. And it can take days for a response to come.
And people will say "it's not a visa bro. You just need to upload your photo, personal info, pay a fee, and they'll get back to you in a few days to tell you whether you're allowed in." Indonesia and India have identical processes with 5 minute turnaround times. Know what they call them? E-Visas. And if you're not eligible for an evisa, you go get a normal one.
It's tedious because you search for whether a country needs a visa, and results will say "nope", but it turns out if you're from specific nationalities that get visa free travel (but not all), you don't need a visa, but you need some random application for something named with a random combination of letters. And if you don't know that specific name, a shallow search might say you're fine.
Just quit the BS. Call it an evisa. And countries that call their process evisas handle them cheaper, faster, and more easily than ESTA or whatever other scam/visa workaround other countries have.
I've never been rejected yet, but it's a pain in the ass needing to do a deep search, thinking I'm fine since no visa is required, then finding out 3 days before my flight while browsing travel forums there is some secret application I need to submit and their webpage is slow and buggy as hell.
It's the sneaky death of visa-free travel, unfortunately.
He's not going to visit there, either.
EU and US do the same to the UK
Australia, Canada and the US also require you to pay money to get the equivalent...
If you want to visit the USA, you have to pay for an ESTA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Its pretty common for international travel....?
USA, Canada, Australia all have a small fee to process a visa. Some even have tourist/hotel taxes if you really want to get a huff on.
A visa is entirely different. EU citizens of course don't need a visa to visit the UK (or the US, or Canada). The UK always had some special border shenanigans (not in the Schengen, etc etc), even for travelers with EU passports, but demanding an advance application with an associated fee is a new level of ridiculousness.
You've described exactly what the EU are implementing this year
The reason the ETA app exists is because the web is a terrible platform for doing this stuff on. The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.
There is no need for the ETA app, you should just come to the passport check, a guy there would check the passport, and you'd enter, like we used to do for decades pretty much everywhere.
There's the voice of a person who has never missed a flight because passport control was fucked...
ETA is absolutely not going to stop that from happening.
> The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application.
> The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found.
Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
W3C are dragging their feet on WebNFC: https://github.com/w3c/web-nfc/issues/355, which prevents the talking "to the NFC in your passport" flow from being fully implementable in a website (hence requiring you to install an App). Not sure what the current state of this issue is, or if this github issue represents the latest developments in it, but AFAIK it is one of the MAJOR blockers for a fully web-based flow.
You'd think at some point a government would say "for fucks sake" and sling an FTE at that kind of thing for a year to get it done.
One guy shepherding an MR is cheaper than whatever contracted out app would cost, and you need the website anyway.
> W3C are dragging their feet on WebNFC
They are not "dragging their feet". Chrome implemented NFC, vomited out a semblance of a standard and said "there, it's standard now". Who cares about objections from other vendors.
Not really. It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots. That requires something a little more complicated than a PHP app from the 90s.
Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it?
> It doesn't just take a single photo of your face. It takes a scan of it i.e. multiple shots.
I never knew you can only upload one photo to a website ever. Or that you can only process one photo at a time on the server.
> Yes it's aggressive but you'll have fewer problems on the app so why the hell wouldn't they push you through it
Because gov.uk's own team has multiple talks and articles on how not everyone has access to latest and greatest tech, accesses government services through weird devices etc.
Uploading files and photos through a web app, particularly when your primary device is a mobile one, is a fucking mess. Simple.
A mess as in: it just works?
The better to make deepfakes of you when they inevitably get hacked. But hey, who could have seen that coming?
As somebody who JUST got the UK ETA recently (~2 weeks ago), I can talk about my experience.
Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA.
The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop).
So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21).
Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down).
"You are holding it wrong" x 10000
I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers.
I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences.
I hope the app developers are reading this.
I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.
You did not need an ETA to transit airside at LHR: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y/usa/transit/somewhere_els...
My ticket is complicated :-/
At least you didn't get asked for details of all your social media
yeah, true...
but then I'm not on social media^[1]. Gave up on those things way before social media fatigue became en vogue.
I was just frustrated with the whole app experience. Some people had a smoother experience, which is fine. Mine was terrible, and I'm sure my parents would not have been able to use this at all.
[1] I am still on LI... which is something I want to give up next.