A hardware token can be lost as well, and "in app" push notification (or whatever the app does) you stil need the telephone or at least the SIM/same telephone muumber, don't you?
Giving homeless people a secure and convenient place to stash documents would be a great outcome. Birth certificate, military discharge papers, licences, 2FA codes. Many homeless people live in cars and have all this stashed somewhere in the car, but then the car gets stolen/towed (e.g. because they haven't paid car registration) and then they're sleeping rough, without docs.
Sorry, I don't understand, I believed that the independence from the SIM for an app was for an app already installed and authenticated on the specific device.
If you lose the smartphone (with the app), and the SIM, how can you install the app and be authenticated on another device?
I mean short of a SMS or a code via e-mail (both not receivable/accessible).
>Giving homeless people a secure and convenient place to stash documents would be a great outcome. Birth certificate, military discharge papers, licences, 2FA codes. Many homeless people live in cars and have all this stashed somewhere in the car, but then the car gets stolen/towed (e.g. because they haven't paid car registration) and then they're sleeping rough, without docs.
A sort of luggage deposit, you mean?
If you know this will be a problem you can enrol with TOTP, using an app but also writing down the initialisation code or printing out the QR code.
This is almost the same as having 2FA recovery codes written down somewhere.
A secure version of luggage deposit, but just for small things. We used to have safe deposit boxes at banks, though it doesn't need to be that secure. The key limitation is that the client can't travel far, and they have to be able to open it based on a matching photo, not an identity card.