iPhone Driver's License Support Coming Soon To California (macrumors.com) 60
iPhone and Apple Watch users in California will soon be able to add their digital ID and driver's license to the Wallet app, as revealed by new landing pages on the state DMV website. This feature follows a slow rollout since its announcement, with only five states currently supporting it. MacRumors reports: "Now you can add your California driver's license or state ID to Apple Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch so you can present it easily and securely in person and in app," reads the landing page, which contains broken links and placeholder images, and is still missing a proper website security certificate. The webpages were discovered on Sunday by Jimmy Obomsawin, after someone added a link to the landing pages in an Apple Wallet Wikipedia entry last Wednesday.
Alot of people will say it's a great idea (Score:2)
Re:Alot of people will say it's a great idea (Score:5, Funny)
MUL-TEE-PASS!
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly the MUL-TEE-PASS/Fifth Element scenario looks possibly bleaker than Minority Report.
<silently weeping>
Re: (Score:2)
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure lawyers everywhere will recommend giving your driver's license on an unlocked phone to a police officer during a traffic stop.
It's not an illegal search of you hand it to them voluntarily.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Informative)
With Apple Wallet (and, IIRC, Google's as well), the phone can stay locked when you present a card from the wallet. It should be reasonably secure.
Re: (Score:2)
Once you have handed it over, if you get it back at all, you're lucky.
They seem to be able to get into numerous models of iPhone these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Once you have handed it over, if you get it back at all, you're lucky.
They seem to be able to get into numerous models of iPhone these days.
The amazing part is they don't even use the $5 wrench recovery routine, this is vastly overcharging the taxpayer and I demand it stop. /s
Why give the phone? (Score:2)
giving your driver's license on an unlocked phone to a police officer during a traffic stop.
Genuinely asking as I haven't checked the details of Apple's, as I only have experience with tons of other identity tokens (RFID cards, tranportation tickets (trains, plane), COVID vaccination status, etc.):
Why giving the phone to the police?
Shouldn't the police officer merely scan the phone while you're holding it?
(Either flashing a big QR code on your phone's display like most of the above, or some radio-based contactless scan like good-old smart cards?)
No thank you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The phone will not be unlocked. However the cop might learn some things about you, depending on how you have your lock screen notifications set (and assuming triggering events happen while the phone is in the cop's possession).
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd much rather just give them (the government's agent) a piece of paper that they (the government) issued to me in the first place...
But heck, even if someone doesn't care philosophically... do you want to be handing an expensive device to some cop who might very well drop it on the road as he walks to/from his vehicle? (whether accidentally or "accidentally")
Re:No thank you. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, then allow me to rephrase. Do I really want to hand over to law enforcement my property which I am not otherwise required to give them?
They are under no obligation to hand your phone back to you, either. If you hand it to them, they can just keep it. (You can go through processes by which you will most likely get it back, eventually, but that could take weeks or months.) When you surrender property to the police like that at a traffic stop, you are voluntarily GIVING it to them, and there's nothing that says they have to return it.
Some people don't let cops take their ID and documents - they will let them inspect it, but not put it into their hands.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people don't let cops take their ID and documents - they will let them inspect it, but not put it into their hands.
Fine if the cops are happy to accommodate those people, but their driver licence is the property of the issuing state (unless some states are different in this respect, which I doubt).
Re: (Score:2)
Do I really want to hand over to law enforcement my property which I am not otherwise required to give them?
No you literally don't have to hand them the phone, locked or otherwise. Please read up on how this technology works.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it has been a long time since you got pulled over in the US.
The general procedure is they pull you over, you hand them your license, registration and proof of insurance and they TAKE those with them to their car to write your ticket and likely run you through the computer to check for warrants.
So, if you have your license on the phone, I don't see how you're gonna get around them tak
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it has been a long time since you got pulled over in the US.
The general procedure is they pull you over, you hand them your license, registration and proof of insurance and they TAKE those with them to their car to write your ticket and likely run you through the computer to check for warrants.
The last time I got pulled over in the US the concept of a digital driver's license didn't exist in the first place. If the state's general procedure for issuing a driving license has changed why not change the general procedure for collecting ID at traffic stops as well?
Yeah, if the officer isn't bringing their digital ID scanner to your car for you to tap, use your physical card. But the fact that that needs to happen doesn't seem like some fundamental flaw in the concept of a digital ID.
Re:Good news (Score:2)
It's not a requirement!
Re: (Score:2)
If I present my phone as my DL in this transaction, will officers take my unlocked phone back to their vehicle to complete their tasks? No thank you.
Easy fix: use the digital ID where it's convenient for you (going through security at the airport, buying wine at grocery store, being carded at a bar) and use a traditional ID where it's more sensitive (driving a car).
Re: (Score:2)
When you get stopped for a traffic violation by police now, you hand them your registration, insurance, and your driver's license. After they explain to you what a piece of shit you are for whatever infraction it is you've just committed, they usually take those documents back to their vehicle, run your name, and write the citation. If I present my phone as my DL in this transaction, will officers take my unlocked phone back to their vehicle to complete their tasks? No thank you.
This is why I like driving in the UK. In 8 years I've been pulled over twice, drove away after a bit of a tongue lashing. Coppers in the UK would rather educate than punish. Neither of them even asked for my DL.
Taking some digital token (Score:2)
If I present my phone as my DL in this transaction, will officers take my unlocked phone back to their vehicle to complete their tasks?
I don't have followed up Apple's specific implementation.
But the way every single other sane eID works is that the person checking the ID (in this case the officer) just quickly scans your smartphone with his device (most often a tablet or a smartphone, either scanning a QR code, or doing some wireless scan like RFID or Bluetooth).
That information that the officer exchanged with your smartphone is the only thing they take. From that point onward they check the latest up-to-date information from the online d
Re: No thank you. (Score:1)
What problem does this solve? (Score:5, Insightful)
I pretty much never have to show my driver's license to anyone. The only time is at a TSA checkpoint at an airport.
Plus as others have noted, should I be pulled over for a traffic stop, I'd really rather not have to hand my phone over.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do the police make you hand over anything nowadays? Shouldn't they have it all on their computer? Isn't it safer for them to not require the person to fiddle around in the car? Ideally they should work on cars have a cop to car communication link on which they can tell you you got a ticket or that you need to pull over. Eventually AI and robots can talk over the police role.
Re: (Score:3)
If you didn't hand anything over, what, exactly, would they type into their computer to obtain "it all?" Aside from them not wanting to take your word for it as to what your name is, there are the issues of:
Exactly: The number (Score:2)
It's a lot simpler if you just hand them your driver's license from which they can clearly see your name and how it's spelled, plus having your driver's license number to disambiguate you.
(emphasis mine)
Yup, that part exactly. The only thing they need is an ID number with which they can check a database where all the relevant information can be found (and eventually compared to you to see if you match).
There's no need to hand out a whole device.
There's not even need to hand out a document like a card or a paper form, the only reason those later are handed out is because they are left over from an era when there wasn't miniaturized cheap technology to automatically give out said ID number.
In
Re: (Score:2)
Why do the police make you hand over anything nowadays? Shouldn't they have it all on their computer?
They do. They're not pulling you over just to see your paperwork.
If you're driving while suspended and they ask you for your driving licence it's to get a quick confession out of you, not because they didn't already know.
That said, they also need to verify that it's actually you behind the wheel.
Re: (Score:2)
None, as I'm 99% sure it will be implemented. But if done correctly, if we could the DMV to fully and competently utilize the technology, there'd be an opportunity to massively enhance privacy though. It won't be, of course. But if, instead of a static image, it were fully tied in to the NFC system every bit of non-relevant data could be locked down. Consider:
If I'm entering a bar or nightclub, there is exactly one piece of information that the bouncer has any business even asking for, much less knowing:
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but there's actually two pieces of information there: the "I" and the ">21." So the doorman not only needs to know the phone's owner is >21, but that you are the phone's owner.
Per my previous comment, that won't
Re: (Score:2)
All this aside, unless mandated by law, most business owners would probably balk at the presumably non-trivial cost of the scanner equipment. Then there's also the problem of what happens if the internet connection is down? The bar can't let anyone else in? Owners aren't going to like losing money.
It's been a number of years since I went to a bar/club that was ID'ing people at the door, but even back then it was common for them to have scanning equipment to read the barcode on the back of the card. If California is serious about this they can surely roll out an iOS/Android app that'll run on a $50 smartphone from Walmart. I can't imagine that's more of an investment that the custom equipment it could replace. Half the restaurants I've been to recently are already issuing devices to all of their wa
Re: (Score:2)
"that won't be sufficient unless you also put your face in front of a scanner so your face can be compared to the face on the phone."
You also have to provide your face when using a physical ID card, for the same purpose, so this is not actually a differential requirement.
"what happens if the internet connection is down"
Why do you think age verification *requires* an online device? An age verification block is more about authenticating the data rather than securing it, so hash the data block with a private k
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't say it wasn't a different requirement. I said only putting your phone to a scanner is insufficient --- just like it's insufficient to put your phone with your boarding pass on the TSA scanner: the TSA agent still has to compare your ID to your face to make sure the phone is your phone --- which means you still need something with your face on it to compare aga
Re: (Score:2)
>If I'm entering a bar or nightclub, there is exactly one piece of
>information that the bouncer has any business even asking for,
>much less knowing: Am I over 21?
For many, yes.
With a group, important for business, I went into one that *scanned* the license. Hogs & Heffers, or something like that; motorcycle themed and catering.
I'm pretty sure it was to hand to the police in case of "incident" . . .
For that matter, any place that needs to ban "colors" probably has the same interest.
Re: (Score:2)
The current iPhone App for the CA DL does basically exactly this. Once you've scanned in and validated your driver license (you have to ping your dmv.ca.gov account, and IIRC it used ID.me to do a facial scan), you can present two different QR codes: one just indicates whether you're over 21, and the other is equivalent to your actual ID. Swipe left on the ID QR code and you get an abbreviated summary of your DL with photo and whatnot, but no address.
There's also a "reader" component to the app, where you c
Re: (Score:2)
As a mentor always used to ask me and I now ask it of others, what problem does this solve?
I pretty much never have to show my driver's license to anyone. The only time is at a TSA checkpoint at an airport.
Plus as others have noted, should I be pulled over for a traffic stop, I'd really rather not have to hand my phone over.
Most of the time when I've been asked for my driving license, it's to prove I'm old enough to buy beer (happening less and less these days sadly). I imagine that for some people this would solve a problem, even if the problem was entirely of their own making.
As long as my plastic card is still issued, I couldn't care less.
Re: (Score:2)
> it's to prove I'm old enough to buy beer (happening less and less these days sadly).
don't keep your hopes up.
Years ago, I was stunned when a low quality clerk demanded id to buy liquid paper for my daughter, who was with me. (turns out some kids are sniffing it). Whether or not my daughter was 16, I more than clearly was.
And a couple of years ago after AZ changed laws, I was getting carded by bewildered checkers there. Now, my grandchildren are *not* old enough to buy booze, only one being in high s
Re: (Score:2)
> it's to prove I'm old enough to buy beer (happening less and less these days sadly).
don't keep your hopes up.
Years ago, I was stunned when a low quality clerk demanded id to buy liquid paper for my daughter, who was with me. (turns out some kids are sniffing it). Whether or not my daughter was 16, I more than clearly was.
And a couple of years ago after AZ changed laws, I was getting carded by bewildered checkers there. Now, my grandchildren are *not* old enough to buy booze, only one being in high school at this point, but . . .
No point in getting upset at the poor bugger who works at the shop, they've got to ask and some places just have a policy (or law) to ask everyone. Personally I take it as a compliment that I'm still not looking my age (north of 40).
Here in the UK it's built into the point of sale system for most stores but there's an option that says "do not challenge" meaning they just didn't bother asking. I'm getting that a lot more these days.
Last time I was card checked was at a US airport (Miami)... I just used
Re: (Score:2)
"stunned", not upset.
And now the pharmacists assistants call me "sweetie" or some such !!!
Re: (Score:2)
As a mentor always used to ask me and I now ask it of others, what problem does this solve?
Plus as others have noted, should I be pulled over for a traffic stop, I'd really rather not have to hand my phone over.
-Automated validation. Once the officer scans the barcode on your phone screen, all the relevant data comes from the government database to their screen directly: name, address, photo, vehicle registration, insurance, warrants, etc. [BEEP] and done. They have confirmed who you are with minimal effort and high accuracy.
-Automated citations. They do not have to write out a ticket by hand. It is menu driven to issue a citation. Print a receipt for you. All the information is already in the system so les
Re: (Score:2)
This assumes that:
Re: (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with your initial question, nor the answer I provided.
If the officer decides to take your phone from you, remember they have a gun and a badge... Live to assert your rights in court.
Bad idea to give your phone to someone else (Score:3)
Unless you really trust them. A title, uniform or badge doesn't make a person trustworthy.
It has been there for a long time (Score:2)
Security (Score:2)
I'm confident we can expect this to have the same DMV-grade crack security as the landing page.
A dream come true (Score:3)
Entrusting all your identity papers to a Big Data monopoly.
Don`t forget to give them your SSN too. They might need it.
Re: (Score:2)
Entrusting all your identity papers to a Big Data monopoly.
Don`t forget to give them your SSN too. They might need it.
If I'd had food or drink in my mouth it would have been a spit-take. But now I feel guilty for laughing over such a serious matter. Damn you Sheriff! ;-}
Re: (Score:1)
Pretty sure Big Data already has all your information... whether you wanted them to or not.
The CA Dmvâ(TM)s mobile ID app is horrible (Score:3)
You install the app, create an acount, and download an ID. However, the ID needs to be refreshed after 30 days and the password expires regularly too. A huge pain with little upside. I doubt the iPhone Wallet experience will be any better.
I'd love to read what Bruce Schneier has to say (Score:3)
My concern, beyond giving my phone to another party ... is whether some kind of clever hack is possible if the phone is stolen.
There's always a hack, but I'm not clear on what this could entail.
Re: (Score:2)
What would the hack achieve? Giving them access to the information on your driver's license?
If someone has my phone and can "hack" it in such a way that they can defeat the biometric or PIN security to extract sensitive data, they can already likely get that info from my contacts, messaging apps, etc. I don't really see how this increases the risk surface.
Wow (Score:3)
That's so convenient! Now does it work for my CCW license? Then I can truly leave my wallet at home!
Re: (Score:2)
Get your state to vote in "Constitutional Carry"...like we just did in Louisiana and then you don't need a CCW license to carry, you just exercise the right without paying fees and such.
digital license (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
My second question is WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU GIVE THE POLICE YOUR UNLOCKED PHONE!!!!!
Good question. Why would you? It certainly isn't needed to use a card stored in your iPhone's wallet.
phone addiction (Score:1)
You can bet everybody under the age of 25 will go for this driver's license enhancement without batting an eye, and a lot of people over 25 will do it because it seems convenient. No concern about
Soooooo stupid (Score:2)
As for NFC, that can be faked too.
Re: (Score:2)
As for NFC, that can be faked too.
How do you fake the transmission of digitally signed information? Not very convincingly, if I had to guess.