UK begs Apple to unlock access to its NFC chips, Apple says "get lucky"

So, Brexit is something that has not been part of the news cycle for some time – certainly not in the technical news. But there is still something going on: the UK is about to "leave" the EU in March of next year. With that, as you can probably imagine, there are many legal issues that need to be addressed. The status of EU citizens living and working in the UK is one of them.

The UK Home Office is developing an application that will make it very easy for people to apply for "established" status in the UK. All they have to do is answer a few questions, take a picture and analyze the NFC chip in their passports. The data is sent directly to the Home Office and must be processed within two weeks for each person.

But, as you probably can imagine, to scan a passport, you would need an NFC chip in your own device.

Here is where the Home Office meets a bit of an obstacle, one could say. Apple's iPhones contain NFC chips that they use since the iPhone 6 era. But these are completely locked from third-party access. Apple uses only NFC technology for its exclusive Apple Pay service and has limited access to third-party developers using its core NFC structure.

As you probably know, iPhones are in the hands of a very large number of people. In the UK, it is estimated that about 50% of smartphone owners use iOS. The Home Office app does not work with iPhones because it does not follow the main NFC framework. She's just too limited for what she needs to do with passport data, presumably. The Office is continuing negotiations with Apple and the United Kingdom's Interior Minister, Sajid Javid, has even gone to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino. It was hoped that Apple would expand the NFC Core a bit during the launch of iOS 12.1, but that did not happen.

On the other hand, Android users will usually have no problem with the process. It is specified that only the "very old" Android devices or cheap entry phones (obviously, those who do not have NFC) will not be able to run the application properly. In addition, there are still some people in the UK who are running Windows or Blackberry, who are not so lucky.

The good news is that you can complete the application process by borrowing someone else 's Android phone or physically posting their passport to the UK Visa and Immigration Department. They can always answer the questionnaire numerically, via a computer. Home Office will install computer stations in 56 local libraries for those who do not have a home computer.

It should also be noted that the Dutch government also requested NFC access to Apple's iPhones last July. The Netherlands have their own applications to facilitate the management of bureaucracy, but again, some features require the use of NFC.

So as we gain in modernity and mobility, the use of NFC technology is reappearing. Maybe at some point, Apple will sell? Hey, they just put a USB Type-C on an iPad, you can dream!