California’s digital driver’s licenses now work with Apple Wallet

Californians can now securely add their digital driver’s license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on their iPhone and Apple Watch, the company announced Thursday.

“With this new integration, we’re working to better serve the people of California in the 21st century,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. The announcement is part of California’s mobile driver’s license pilot program, which is limited to 1.5 million participants.

The governor announced last month that the service is also available on Google Wallet. Previously, Californians had to install a wallet app from the state Department of Motor Vehicles to use the digital license.

“Enabling California residents to seamlessly add and present their IDs with their iPhone or Apple Watch represents a significant step in replacing the physical wallet with a more secure and private digital wallet,” said Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.

To add a license or ID to the Apple Wallet, a user taps the plus (+) button at the top of the screen in the wallet on their iPhone, selects “Driver’s License or State ID” and follows the onscreen instructions.

But users shouldn’t leave behind their hard copies just yet.

Law enforcement, state government agencies and businesses aren’t yet accepting the mobile driver’s license, and the Transportation Security Administration lists only two airport terminals in the country where it can be used — Los Angeles International Airport Terminal 7 and San Francisco International Airport Terminal 3.

Just six convenience stores throughout the state allow users to make age-restricted purchases with the mobile license, five of which are in Sacramento, according to the DMV website.

Yet even before Google Wallet and Apple Wallet added the service, half a million Californians had already signed up — more than in any other state, although still less than 2% of the people licensed to drive in California.

One potential advantage of a digital license is that it can limit how much of your personal information you show when someone asks to check your ID. A digital license can simply confirm to a bouncer or cashier that you’re 21 or older, for example, without sharing your home address.

The technical standards for digital licenses are designed to prevent the unauthorized transmission and collection of personal information, which is a level of protection physical licenses cannot provide.

Advocates of digital licenses argue that privacy and security concerns have been integral in the development of the license standards, and that the digital versions are far better on both fronts than plastic.

“When adding an ID to Apple Wallet, the state-issuing authority receives only the information it needs to approve or deny the request,” Apple said in a statement. “Once an ID is added to Apple Wallet, the information is encrypted on a user’s device, so others — including Apple — cannot access it unless a user chooses to present it.”

But privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have questioned whether the standards have been in use long enough to be fully vetted. The foundations also says retailers could still combine the limited digital information from your license with other information they collect about you and sell it to data brokers.

State officials across the U.S., meanwhile, are moving ahead; about a dozen other states have implemented some form of digital ID, and almost every other state is either in the process or studying the issue.