Apple Says It's Time to Digitize Your ID, Ready or Not

If you've ever scanned a digital boarding pass directly from your phone at airport security, you can imagine how doing the same with your driver's license would make life a little easier. Beginning in iOS 15 this fall, Apple will enable just that, letting you store your state ID alongside your credit cards, loyalty programs, transit passes, and even door and car keys in Apple Wallet. By doing so, the company won't just introduce convenience; it may well be the tipping point that forces more states, the US government, and even Android to make digital driver's licenses the norm.

Apple itself isn't launching a universal digital identification scheme; plenty of others have embarked on technically and geopolitically fraught efforts to create a new type of private and secure ID for everyone. And digital driver's licenses aren't entirely novel. States like Oklahoma, Delaware, and Arizona have recently worked with a company called IDEMIA to develop both the infrastructure and a companion app to support digital driver's licenses. And Colorado and Louisiana introduced digital IDs more than two years ago. 

It's still very much early days, though. Every state that allows for digital driver's licenses still requires you to carry the physical version, and some mobile licenses currently can't be used outside the state that issued them. That's partly because the federal government is in the process of introducing new design requirements to make driver's licenses harder to forge or manipulate, part of the REAL ID Act. Apple didn't speak to the issue directly, but will presumably build in the ability to use Wallet IDs out of state for flying. 

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