iPhone Driver's License Support Coming to Illinois

Cue the uninformed “I won’t hand my unlocked phone to a cop” posts

I will stick with handing over the plastic license and keep my phone in my pocket

Cue the uninformed “I won’t hand my unlocked phone to a cop” posts

Username checks out.

Why hand a near $1000 device to a person when a piece of printed plastic will do?

When you currently use Apple Pay in stores, do you normally hand your iPhone to the checkout clerk? Because the rest of us just hold our phone up to the scanner and authorize it to transfer some information.

That's exactly how the digital ID works. You don't hand your phone to anyone. They present a scanner (either a handheld one, or I think the TSA has ones that are mounted on a counter), you hold your iPhone close and the scanner requests information (from the demos, it shows a list of what information will be transferred - if, say, you're buying alcohol or entering a bar, it will only show your photo - so the bouncer can verify that it's you - and certification that you're 21 or older - not your age, not your birthday, just that you're at least 21). You decide that you're going to transfer the listed information, and double click the side button, and authenticate yourself to the phone with FaceID. The requested information shows up in their equipment, and that's it.

This is a huge win on both sides for something like a bar/club, because they get an ID that can't be faked (so they don't have to worry about underage kids sneaking in to drink), and the person getting in doesn't have to worry about an unscrupulous bouncer/etc getting their full name, birthdate, home address, etc.

Eventually, once this becomes widespread (like when two thirds of the country has digital IDs, and police departments get funding for handheld scanners, and procure them, and train everyone on using them), it'll become widely used for proving your identity (while only handing out the information needed, like that you're over 21), including to the police. But that's going to take years. And nobody is going to be "handing a near $1000 device to a person" to authenticate themselves. I wish people would stop repeating this falsehood. My understanding is, in many (most? all?) jurisdictions, where this technology is just starting to come online, the laws are being written so that police officers are not allowed to touch your phone in the process.

And there would be little benefit to them handling your phone, anyway - the mDL isn't human readable - the card that appears in your Apple Wallet doesn't even show your last name, just your first (and possibly middle) name and your last initial. The rest of the information can only be accessed via NFC, and only after the iPhone has been in close proximity to the NFC scanner, with the transfer then subsequently authenticated/authorized by FaceID.

If the phone is out of your possession, they can't get the mDL information from the phone - and note that the phone itself does not need to be unlocked in order to use Apple Wallet - if you opened Apple Wallet to show your mDL and they for some reason grabbed the phone away from you, they'd be able to... see what credit/debit cards you have (but not use them), and see what loyalty cards you have - they might get to see your Starbucks or BestBuy loyalty card numbers, and find out what grocery stores you shop at. That's it. No access to any of your other data.

You can test this for yourself - start with your iPhone locked, double-click to open Apple Wallet and let it authenticate you. Now, put your thumb over the camera, so FaceID cannot further authenticate (thus simulating someone else holding the phone), and see what information you can access - you can see what cards are in the wallet, you can see the last 4 digits on the credit/debit cards, but they'll want further authentication before the card is usable and you can see the fronts of the loyalty cards / tickets, which will generally show a barcode/QR code and a membership number of some sort. And that's it. There's nothing to be gained by handing them your phone, or them grabbing the phone away from you. I mean, sure, they could grab the phone away and then force you to authenticate in order to get into your personal data... but if you're going down that path of reasoning, they could also just shoot you, take whatever they wanted, and say that you became belligerent and resisted arrest. I'd worry about that scenario first.

(Oh, and if a police officer ever demands to see your phone, hold down the side button and volume up or down, for a couple seconds, then release and press the side button again - this will turn off FaceID and require a passphrase in order to unlock the phone. And this is easy enough to do while you're taking your phone out of your pocket or purse. That first press/hold takes you to the power-off/medical-id screen, the second press just dismisses that screen, so your phone looks "normal". Oh, and you don't just use a PIN, right? My passphrase is alphanumeric, and in excess of 15 characters - not something easily guessed or brute-forced.)

I have had my digital CA driver license for a while and not a single place has ever accepted it. Not TSA at the airport, not at the market while buying beer, not renting a car, not checking into a hotel, not the Apple store to pickup my iPhone, not the bank to make withdrawal.

It is a good idea but in practice it is currently useless.

I know I'm getting old ... but I really *do* get the "not handing my phone to a cop" thing, regardless of the details about unlocking it first and what they're allowed to do/not do with one in their hands.

The REAL point here is; your phone is a multi-purpose electronic device that might stop working properly at any time, due to it getting accidentally dropped or the battery running out or just component failure. A physical drivers' license or credit/debit card won't suffer from any of these potential problems.

Would I add my drivers' license to my iPhone when IL finally gets this implemented? Sure, probably will, just because I can and it's offered... But I'll keep carrying the physical license and imagine that's the one I'd keep pulling out to show people, 9 times out of 10. Why hand a near $1000 device to a person when a piece of printed plastic will do?