It’s still in development but is being built specifically with GrapheneOS in mind. Hopefully we should have a privacy focused tap-to-pay within a year.
It’s no less secure than keeping your card in your wallet like all but the most paranoid of us do, and it’s more convenient than Google pay. Plus it comes with the benefit of not sharing your purchase history with an ad company, and lets you use a much more secure and private OS. Your call, but seems like an easy choice to me.
It’s that or share your entire purchase history with the world’s biggest ad company. It essentially comes down to a tradeoff of a small outlier risk that isn’t likely to have any significant effect in most peoples’ lifetimes against an absolute certainty that your privacy will be violated and exploited. I am not seeing how that’s preferable, but it’s your choice, and you have to do what you’re most comfortable with.
Oops meant card. Most people carry their card in their wallet and use a pay app on their phone, so their card can get skimmed if the card is in their phone case or their wallet. While everyone has different risk tolerance, the actual risk of encountering fraud like skimming physical cards in wallets or at the register is small enough to not be a show stopper for most people.
My wallet has blocked RFID signals for the past ten years which has advantages but also sucks when I use to use a bus card or a student id I couldn’t tap my wallet but rifle through it. My city’s buses uses a qr code thingy ready2ride so you scan in with your phone and tickets can now last 3 hours instead of one use which is amazing for grocery shopping or a night out
Yeah this is why I did a personal risk assessment and decided worrying about an RFID exploit wasn’t worth the effort. It’s easier for me to just get a notification from my banking app every time my card is used and acting on it immediately if something is wrong. The busses here hit your card for one cent the first time you use it in a day, and then never charge you more than a day pass. If you use the same card, you have a variable transfer window depending on time of day. 90+ minutes most of the time, but up to six hours overnight.
Tap-to-pay is an obstacle for GrapheneOS adoption for sure. It seems like some Garmin watches have tap-to-pay support which doesn’t just utilize your phone like other smart watches. I’m going to be heading in that direction soon. I’ve found some reports that the Vivoactiv series actually loads the card onto the watch so I’d use the Garmin app in a secondary profile to set it up but then largely leave the Garmin watch disconnected from my phone but should still be able to use the watch for tap-to-pay.
You can still use Google wallet if you’re happy to accept Google services in full*. Also, Curve has touchless payment that doesn’t require Google’s stuff. You do obviously trade Google for another company to slurp up your data, so it’s not a perfect solution.
* I’m bad and a big fat liar, Google Pay does indeed not work on 3rd party OSes. Curve Pay does though, as that’s what I’m using.
It’s tap to pay (or use the public transit) that’s keeping me back.
Check out WALT
It’s still in development but is being built specifically with GrapheneOS in mind. Hopefully we should have a privacy focused tap-to-pay within a year.
Put your card in your phone case.
I don’t use a phone case and it’s less secure besides.
It’s no less secure than keeping your card in your wallet like all but the most paranoid of us do, and it’s more convenient than Google pay. Plus it comes with the benefit of not sharing your purchase history with an ad company, and lets you use a much more secure and private OS. Your call, but seems like an easy choice to me.
I’m not worried about some nebulous theft; the not sharing of a card number with a merchant is what I’m referring to.
It’s that or share your entire purchase history with the world’s biggest ad company. It essentially comes down to a tradeoff of a small outlier risk that isn’t likely to have any significant effect in most peoples’ lifetimes against an absolute certainty that your privacy will be violated and exploited. I am not seeing how that’s preferable, but it’s your choice, and you have to do what you’re most comfortable with.
What do you mean by this? Most people don’t carry a wallet big enough to store a phone.
Oops meant card. Most people carry their card in their wallet and use a pay app on their phone, so their card can get skimmed if the card is in their phone case or their wallet. While everyone has different risk tolerance, the actual risk of encountering fraud like skimming physical cards in wallets or at the register is small enough to not be a show stopper for most people.
Ah, that makes a lot more sense lol
My wallet has blocked RFID signals for the past ten years which has advantages but also sucks when I use to use a bus card or a student id I couldn’t tap my wallet but rifle through it. My city’s buses uses a qr code thingy ready2ride so you scan in with your phone and tickets can now last 3 hours instead of one use which is amazing for grocery shopping or a night out
Yeah this is why I did a personal risk assessment and decided worrying about an RFID exploit wasn’t worth the effort. It’s easier for me to just get a notification from my banking app every time my card is used and acting on it immediately if something is wrong. The busses here hit your card for one cent the first time you use it in a day, and then never charge you more than a day pass. If you use the same card, you have a variable transfer window depending on time of day. 90+ minutes most of the time, but up to six hours overnight.
Tap-to-pay is an obstacle for GrapheneOS adoption for sure. It seems like some Garmin watches have tap-to-pay support which doesn’t just utilize your phone like other smart watches. I’m going to be heading in that direction soon. I’ve found some reports that the Vivoactiv series actually loads the card onto the watch so I’d use the Garmin app in a secondary profile to set it up but then largely leave the Garmin watch disconnected from my phone but should still be able to use the watch for tap-to-pay.
You can still use Google wallet if you’re happy to accept Google services in full*. Also, Curve has touchless payment that doesn’t require Google’s stuff. You do obviously trade Google for another company to slurp up your data, so it’s not a perfect solution.* I’m bad and a big fat liar, Google Pay does indeed not work on 3rd party OSes. Curve Pay does though, as that’s what I’m using.
Google wallet does not work on graphene even with Play Services installed
/e/os has the same issue
Whops, you’re right, I should have double checked. Google Pay does not work, but curve does at least.