Apple Pay Now Accepted By Some UK Online Government Services

A little off topic but it always makes me giggle when a website called 9 to 5 mac manage to post stories like this at the weekend, and then they get posted here 48 hours later because nobody does weekends at macrumors.

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.

I think you are confusing them with Google ;-)
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.

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.

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.

I wish that Apple Pay had a greater online presence, particularly when it comes to micropayments/donations.

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.

Very surprised.
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.

Apple Pay AND Google pay


Good grief, cognitive dissonance at its worst

Very surprised.
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.

Any chance you updated your electoral register, and have yourself on the unedited register?

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.

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.

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-standard

I wish that Apple Pay had a greater online presence, particularly when it comes to micropayments/donations.

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.

Security is also a concern, esp with government sites. I shudder putting my credit card into dmv.ca.gov.