British Government services have begun accepting Apple Pay to approve online transactions. The gov.uk website is accepting Apple's mobile payment system for four services initially, but it will roll out more widely as well as to local government, police, and the NHS later this year, ITV reports.
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Payments for the Global Entry Service, enabling UK citizens to get expedited entry to the US, can now be made via Apple or Google Pay. The same goes for basic online disclosure and barring service (DBS) checks, the Registered Traveller Service and the Electronic Visa Waiver Service for people in the Middle East coming to the UK.
Till Wirth, lead product manager of gov.uk Pay, said: "Allowing people to pay for Government services through Apple Pay and Google Pay means they won't have to enter their credit or debit card information when making payments.
"This innovation will increase the convenience and security of gov.uk Pay for users and hopefully make their experience online a lot easier."
Apple Pay launched in the United Kingdom in 2015, while the UK government launched its online Pay platform in 2016. The gov.uk Pay service has since been used to make more than 2.9 million transactions using credit and debit cards, according to the report.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Back on topic, this is good news. I hope they extend it to UKVI at some point, because last time I paid for visas to the UK it was a pain.
For instance, while browsing Wikipedia on my iPhone some months ago, I saw one of their donation ads pop up. On a whim
I decided that I’d give them a few dollars because why not—they provide a good service. But going to the payment processing page showed PayPal or entering my CC info as the only valid options, both of which require far more effort then a quick Face ID scan.
Ultimately I’m just lazy.
I think you are confusing them with Google ;-)
For better or worse, gov.uk has various IT silos. The good thing about this is that some IT depts are very advanced, which allows other IT depts to learn from them, and avoid their mistakes. Another good thing is there's less risk of gigantic hugely expensive plans to integrate everything and hoover up all info which ultimately fail at vast cost. The bad thing is there's no consistency of level of IT service, and some depts are rather backwards.U.K. government is very scatterbrained - and they don’t have any centralised personal data repositories. Keep in mind it’s the same government that cancelled ID cards scheme and destroyed all collected biometrics.
DVLA and local councils are obliged to give some of your data away (by law) unfortunately - but that’s not a global government policy. I’d say that in some cases it would have been better for them to collect more data but they don’t (NHS and their digital services are still very limited and not centralised).
The reason for gov.uk Pay is to simply save money by being its own payment processor.
Some depts are well ahead of the curve and I think the passport IT dept is one of them - I visited one of their IT teams in central London recently to take part in a survey on making a possible online passport renewal service more accessible to disabled people. I can't say much about specifics but they were using Agile programming and they were very aware that people in the future would be wanting to apply for passports and submit documents and biometric data by mobile phones, and they were trying to develop this service while ensuring it was accessible to all. I was quite impressed.
It could be this same team that have implemented Apple Pay for Global Entry and other visa / passport services. I wouldn't be surprised at all.
I chatted to them about other public-facing gov.uk IT services, such as Gov Gateway - I have about 4 or 5 Gov Gateway accounts as do a lot of other people due to various silos such as HMRC and DMV all requiring their own Gateway accounts - and they said it was a headache for them too.
Very surprised.
Any chance you updated your electoral register, and have yourself on the unedited register?The current government are wanting a ban on encryption, which puts iMessage and even Apple Pay at risk of being banned.
They also like to harvest as much data as they can. Accepting Apple Pay means they have less data regarding the debit and credit cards of people using their services. They don’t have much use for it themselves, but do sell it on. For example a few years ago I moved house, the only people to know of my change of address was the DVLA (similar to the DMV in the USA). Straight away I started getting junk mail addressed to me. It was only possible if the DVLA had sold my information.
DVLA can't sell your data, but it's likely you appear on a publicly available register.
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For better or worse, gov.uk has various IT silos. The good thing about this is that some IT depts are very advanced, which allows other IT depts to learn from them, and avoid their mistakes. Another good thing is there's less risk of gigantic hugely expensive plans to integrate everything and hoover up all info which ultimately fail at vast cost. The bad thing is there's no consistency of level of IT service, and some depts are rather backwards.
All of what you describe here is now part of the minimum set of standards that ALL services by central government are expected to meet: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standardSome depts are well ahead of the curve and I think the passport IT dept is one of them - I visited one of their IT teams in central London recently to take part in a survey on making a possible online passport renewal service more accessible to disabled people. I can't say much about specifics but they were using Agile programming and they were very aware that people in the future would be wanting to apply for passports and submit documents and biometric data by mobile phones, and they were trying to develop this service while ensuring it was accessible to all. I was quite impressed.
It could be this same team that have implemented Apple Pay for Global Entry and other visa / passport services. I wouldn't be surprised at all.
I chatted to them about other public-facing gov.uk IT services, such as Gov Gateway - I have about 4 or 5 Gov Gateway accounts as do a lot of other people due to various silos such as HMRC and DMV all requiring their own Gateway accounts - and they said it was a headache for them too.
I wish that Apple Pay had a greater online presence, particularly when it comes to micropayments/donations.
Security is also a concern, esp with government sites. I shudder putting my credit card into dmv.ca.gov.For instance, while browsing Wikipedia on my iPhone some months ago, I saw one of their donation ads pop up. On a whim
I decided that I’d give them a few dollars because why not—they provide a good service. But going to the payment processing page showed PayPal or entering my CC info as the only valid options, both of which require far more effort then a quick Face ID scan.
Ultimately I’m just lazy.
Good grief, cognitive dissonance at its worst