Honest question, I need to know.

This caused me so much confusion trying to read the thing…
I have to insert my new eID card reversed and upside down now… And they made the arrow nearly invisible too…

As far as I can tell, this is against all standards, the chip should be on the front, no?

I'm a computer engineer, it took me nearly an hour of messing around with a new version of the eID software, and another hour to figure out I have to insert the card in a very weird way…

My IT support at work laughed when I told him, he said he even had people show up at his desk to help with this…

What did they think was going to happen? Who's gonna help my grandparents with this?

Belgium why?!

EDIT 1: it's because of ICAO regulation, but I still think they did it wrong 🤣

EDIT 2: the specs seem to allow for a chip on the front, the mystery remains…

by BlueBlond

16 comments

  1. I can think of twoo reasons:

    – it’s put on the back so your privacy data isn’t on display when inserting it in more public places

    – a design decision made without any developer present in the room and rolled out despite of internal objections of devs

  4. It’s Belgium, we always have to do things slightly different than what’s conventional.

    Probably some overpaid engineer that came with a very complicated theory that doesn’t make sense on why it should be that way.

  5. > I’m a computer engineer, it took me nearly an hour of messing around with a new version of the eID software, and another hour to figure out I have to insert the card in a very weird way…

    mate…

  6. Because it had to be backwards compatible with the previous cards.

  7. I hate to break it to you but for some reason lots of countries decided to move the chip to the back for what ever reason 🤷‍♂️

  8. Couldn’t enter the recycling park with my new eID. Kept trying while the queue got longer. Thought ok maybe something needs to be activated. I make a total ass out of myself telling the people behind me – while hanging through the window because i can’t open my door with the booth right there – to please back away so i can park on the side.

    You know the rest of the story.

  9. The worst part is that I’ve heard from a lot of people that the chip doesn’t read half of the time on those newer cards.

  10. I can only think of one logical reason: So there’s more space in the front to put more information on it. If the card is inserted you don’t need to read it anyway. When you do need to read it you want the necessary information on one side.

  11. Security hardening. Malicious actors can’t steal your data when they can’t access it. Clever!

  12. Lol so I wasn’t the only one struggling, I actually bought a new card reader thinking mine broke, turned out you had to flip the card 😂😂😂 I was pissed when I found out

  14. i use it so much (ie never) it wouldn’t be a problem for me.

  15. It’s still on the front. They just put all the info that should be on the front, on the back.

  16. The biggest disappointment is that these new IDs still don’t support NFC. These chips are ancient technology. Good luck connecting it to a smartphone or a tablet. Many people doesn’t have Windows PCs anymore. In Poland you can just put your ID to a smartphone to read it.

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