Apple’s website says the ability to add a driver’s license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch in participating U.S. states is coming in early 2022.
Now, in the second beta of iOS 15.4 seeded today, MacRumors‘ Steve Moser uncovered a new line of code in the Wallet app that states “Find out when your driver’s license or state ID is ready to use and get important updates about your ID.”
Apple last year announced that Arizona and Georgia will be among the first states to support the feature and said that Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah will follow. Other states like Colorado, Delaware, Florida, and Louisiana already offer their own digital ID apps and could work with Apple on Wallet app integration.
While there are code-level preparations for the feature, it is still not possible to add a driver’s license or state ID to the Wallet app in the second beta of iOS 15.4. The feature could be enabled by time iOS 15.4 is publicly released around March or April, given Apple’s early 2022 timeframe, but this remains to be seen.
MacDailyNews Take: A report last November — Apple sticks taxpayers with portion of costs for U.S. states’ digital IDs in Wallet app — by CNBC that said Apple requires states to maintain the systems needed to issue and service digital IDs at taxpayer expense, according to contracts signed by four states. The agreement, obtained through public record requests from CNBC and other sources, shows that Apple maintains a high degree of control over the government agencies responsible for issuing identification cards, with “sole discretion” for key aspects of the program.
So perhaps this has something to do with the delay, beyond the normal issue of trying to work with government that moves at the speed of frozen molasses.
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Now that Apple wants to scan our pictures without warrants or cause to send to unknown third parties outside the US there is no way I trust them to scan and maintain my driver’s license!
Then perhaps you should trust Google, Microsoft, or Samsung to scan your pictures.
No. I haven’t and won’t use iOS15 and instead I backup now to my own Synology NAS.
Does not trusting Apple mean a force of nature will compel to trust Google, MS, or Samsung?
“Just Me”, you can order a copy from Apple on what it records based on your individual ID. You can even order that from the Android phone you use. You’ll want to skip the part of ordering a copy of information from Google. It’d make your blathering nonsense more difficult to type even for unhinged you.
So, when I lose or break my phone or the battery dies, I will lose my phone, GPS, wallet AND drivers license. Hard Pass
There’s a reserve battery power that lets you still access certain bits of information such as your license and certain other wallet passes.
But you will only be allowed to drive on Apple approved roads. You know for your safety and “experience”.
It’s amazing to me you can get up each day and and actually function.
This is in idle…
It would be a mistake to use your phone to show a drivers license to a cop as it invites them to look further through your phone. You just willingly gave them access to your entire phone.
Perhaps apple can let you show just the license but in lock mode, but still, it gives the cops access to confiscate your phone, which may be a bad idea.
I completely understand the concern but the process is already there via ApplePay. You double press the side button, it validates via FaceID, it brings up your list of cards, you select the card to use. That process does not give access to the phone, it is only validating access to ApplePay/Wallet. Full access to the phone would require exiting Wallet and then a second FaceID scan.
Fyi, Apple’s FaceId makes it almost impossible to force FaceID authentication. Even if it was brought to your face unwittingly or even your head was held, your eyes only need be looking not directly at the phone for FaceID to not validate (this is one of the benefits of the notch).
Your ID in your phone is significantly more secure than a physical ID copy. A physical copy can be stolen or copied. While your iPhone can be stolen it can’t ever be accessed (due to the security of FaceID) and you can track it via FindMy as well as mark it lost/stolen in iCloud. Because of the FindMY network, there’s little chance that once it is marked lost/stolen that it will ever be able to be used again until it is validated with Apple (that includes many cell providers marking its ID as not able to be activated for the network).
Zombie is part way there regarding police access to your iPhone. Pay attention touchy fanboy Apple defender, I’ll finish with a true story that might have ramifications
Know someone who ran a stop sign, issued a ticket just over $100 and mailed in a check a week overdue. He was pulled over coming home from work and the officer informed him of driving on a suspended license for late payment.
Because license was suspended, he was written a citation, received a court appearance notice, not allowed to finish driving home and lastly the officer CONFISCATED his license.
So, if the only license you have is stored in your phone, it runs the risk of confiscation and yes, that will lead to potential of police prying in your iPhone…
What is needed is a way to show your ID on the police officer’s phone without physically giving your phone to the police officer. Just like credit card information is sent via Apple Pay.
Eventually, I hope!
Will I need an Apple license to drive an Apple Car?
Apple car will launch in 2024, it is going to break the banks to purchase one.
Apple’s entire raison d’etre nowadays seems to be giving people things they never asked for and don’t want. That could sum up all of Silicon Valley of the past ten years and it’s how I know younger, greener, and less intuitive/experienced people are slinging spaghetti against the wallsof Cupertino. No, thanks, Apple. I’ll pass on Apple Glass, too. And Apple Car. And an M1 iMac. And AirTags (seriously – those were invented by said younger generations because they’d lose their heads or even socks if they weren’t stapled onto their shoulders and didn’t have their name written on them). It’d all be amusing if their were any alternatives remaining.
How in the World does the M1 chip fit into the box of things you castigate? A-Glass, A-Car, A-Tags…ok, they aren’t and won’t be for everyone.
Another note per “silicon valley”…Call me a cynic/conspiratorialist, but almost all of the new products, coincidentally, or purposefully, enable tracking. If not intentional, in the end, they make tracking easier for someone. I speculate that it is the way as human-kind moves closer to reality being digitized. Just writing that causes pause.
The M1 chip doesn’t. A closed, and worthless-after-a-couple-of-years Mac that features the M1 chip does. I am guessing that you are one of the socks-with-their-name-written-in-them and incapable of critical, individual thought that wants AirTags folks. Stop proving us right, year after year, with more and more justification, or do better. For capapble people it isn’t that hard.
Give us a break. The day will come, perhaps when you are too old to change things for yourself, when you will realize that the credit card mommy got for you when you were 16 no longer works and you realize that youa re utterly bereft of the simple skills required to fix your life that you should have probably started developing around the time you got that credit card. Spare us your Gen Z philosophy. You are an idiot that wouldn’t last five minutes anywhere but the western coast of the united states. Really. You would curl like a wilted flower as far east as Arizona, and you’d probablyl call mom and dad every night in your 40s or 50s.