Apple has announced that California residents will soon be able to add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet as part of California’s mobile driver’s license (mDL) pilot.
Driving the news: The rollout will happen “this fall” and will be limited to 1.5 million participants, allowing users to travel through certain terminals at Los Angeles International and San Francisco International airports without handing over their physical driver’s licenses or their phones.
- To enroll in the pilot program, users must scan their driver’s license or ID and a photo of their face.
- Participants in the program will have the ability to use mobile IDs to purchase age-restricted products at specific retail locations in Sacramento and to pass through certain airport security checkpoints.
The backstory: This initiative expands on existing mobile ID programs in Arizona, Maryland, Colorado, Georgia, and Ohio, as well as New York’s Mobile ID app that was launched earlier.
- State-run mobile ID apps have raised security concerns, including the possibility of driver’s licenses being used as a pretext for police to seize phones during routine stops, or to prevent people from filming police interactions.
- Apple assures that IDs stored in Apple Wallet aren’t accessible by third parties, including Apple itself, and the driver’s license information is only stored on a user’s device and cannot be accessed unless a user chooses to present it.
- Furthermore, Apple and the state-issuing authority do not have access to information about when, where, or with whom a user presents their driver’s license or state ID.
