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dgxyz | 3 days ago

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.

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troupo|3 days ago

> 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".

Phemist|3 days ago

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.

dgxyz|3 days ago

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?

ajsnigrutin|3 days ago

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.

dgxyz|3 days ago

There's the voice of a person who has never missed a flight because passport control was fucked...