Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Preparing for the worst and having a backup plan in case of emergency is one of the tasks of the government. An internet breakdown qualifies as an emergency in our digitised world dependent on digital financial transactions.
But don't worry, in the future, you will be able to continue shopping in Switzerland even without internet or cash in your pocket, the government has assured.
Enjoy the read!
In an increasingly digitised world, the risk of an internet blackout is a major concern. On Monday, the government presented a plan that will allow, by the end of next year, to pay for purchases with one’s credit or debit card even in the absence of a network.
At the time of payment, the transaction will be accepted but the data will not be sent to the card company. They will remain only in the store’s system and will be executed as soon as the network is available again. The mechanism will not work with smartphones or even with cards issued abroad.
A check of the actual availability of funds will therefore not be possible immediately at the time of payment and, to limit the risk of abuse, the new system will only allow the purchase of basic necessities. It will therefore be introduced in grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations.
The system, already active in some northern European countries, is not without risk. One of the main points of contention concerns the shift of responsibility, in the event of a cyberattack, from banks to the individual store.
If someone stole your identity to commit a crime, you would probably do what you could to prevent it. The Swiss authorities have found themselves in this situation and have introduced a new regulation that seems to be having an effect.
“This call is from the Swiss police,” exclaims a robotic voice on the phone. It is a call that many people in Switzerland have received on several occasions recently. Of course, this is not really the Swiss police (this is clear from the absence of an accent), but one of the many examples of scams in which criminals pretend to be public officials to extort money.
However, cases of this type reported to the Federal Office for Cybersecurity (FOCS) rose from 400 per month to less than 100 in July, following the introduction of a measure that obliges telecommunications companies to identify calls from abroad and that usurp Swiss numbers.
However, the FOCS remains vigilant: in the first half of the year, it received 27,128 voluntary reports and 200 mandatory reports relating to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
Taking your first steps into the world of work is an experience that can be pleasant or terrible in Switzerland. An article in RTS explores the issue of unequal treatment of young people who undertake an internship during their studies.
RTS cites on the one hand the experience of an intern in a multinational pharmaceutical company who receives a salary of between CHF2,000 and CHF3,000, has free meals and coffee, access to the fitness room, a useful project for his studies and a supervisor who accompanies him. On the other hand, we find a girl who found herself working for free for an NGO. “All the work is done by the interns and the manager is absolutely not present,” he says. They promised her training courses, but this was not the case.
These disparities are also due to the absence of a federal law on the compensation of interns. The rules, when they exist, are cantonal or dictated by collective agreements. According to the Lausanne Student Federation, the high demand and the low supply of internships make companies set the criteria they want, with the risk of wage dumping that penalizes equal treatment. To accept an unpaid full-time internship, in fact, you need to be able to count on a high level of personal economic availability or family support.
According to sociologist Dominique Glaymann, the problem goes beyond the financial dimension. Jobs that were previously reserved for “junior” professional profiles are now systematically carried out by interns. A paradox for a system designed to facilitate the integration of young people into the labor market.
Swiss citizenship is only revoked in exceptional circumstances, including support for terrorist organisations. The Federal Administrative Court has confirmed the revocation in a very special case, in which the person, convicted in France, could become stateless.
He is a 36-year-old born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and naturalised Swiss as a child. In 2021, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in France for supporting the preparations for a terrorist attacks and running several propaganda and recruitment channels for terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State.
The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) ordered the revocation of Swiss nationality on the grounds that the man had committed serious crimes and damaged Switzerland’s reputation. However, the person concerned appealed against the decision, arguing, among other things, that he was subjected to a double criminal trial and risked becoming stateless, having renounced his Bosnian citizenship.
According to the Court, however, the problem of the double sanction does not arise, since denaturalisation is an administrative act and not a criminal one. The risk of statelessness was deemed acceptable in this case, given the high possibility that the renunciation of Bosnian nationality was actually a ploy to avoid the procedure in Switzerland. An appeal is still possible at the Federal Court.
Translated from Italian, sub-edited by Anand Chandrasekhar
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