The title is hyperbolic. You still do need a passport and there's no such thing as a digital passport. You need to register your document at some point, so that one is what you will use. Using a different passport would mean logging in and changing your data; your user will be unchanged.
The article is speculating about the future based on current trends, so of course there is not yet a digital passport.
The current experiments seem to be fractured across governments and I would be very surprised to see a centralized system (as your response seems to imply) come into play until well after various governments introduce their own digital systems.
It's not even future, it's rolled out in Ukraine to millions of people and it uses silly face id over the camera to authenticate you for remote things. You can't cross borders with it, as it requires amending the treaties, but otherwise it's a thing.
Ok so it's not a passport. What is being described by the article are just national identities based on physical cards. Estonia has been doing that for a very long time as well.
Also, I had to leave my passport at a consulate to get a visa added. How would that work? It seems the coordination alone would make something like moving to full digital take a long time to happen.
I’ve done the online process to get a visa before (India and Australia), you just upload pictures of your passport and they code a visa to your passport number.
Without a paper passport I’m not sure how that would work. They could code it to another piece of identity I guess (like your ID card), but there would still be something unless biometrics become advanced enough.
I assumed that's how it should work and was surprised they needed my passport. It was sent back with an entirely new picture page. When I've crossed borders they don't seem to know I even have a visa unless I tell them /shrug.
Same as current ones - each gov does their own thing & are largely mutually blind aside from info their spooks/police/taxman may share. Chances of this being widely coordinated are slim.
Everyone is quite keen on maintaining sovereignty on matters like this aside from tightly integrated blocs like EU
