Google Wallet took numerous steps forward in 2024, supporting more banks, passes, and features. It has matured to the point that Google is moving forward with Wallet and shuttered Google Pay in the U.S. last week. What’s next for Android’s top wallet app? If you ask Google, it will probably tell you about digital IDs and driver’s licenses. Based on the company’s public comments, expanding digital IDs will be a focus point for Google Wallet throughout 2024. Unfortunately, you shouldn’t get your hopes up. We’re not even close to a digital-only future for IDs and driver’s licenses.
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How do I know? I’ve spent eight months living in one of the very few states to support digital IDs in Google Wallet (Arizona), and there has been zero incentive for me to add my ID to my phone. I can store it there, but I’ll still need my physical driver’s license to legally drive in the state, or any other place for that matter. I can use my digital ID in Google Wallet to get through TSA checkpoints at the Phoenix airport, but I can’t use it on my return flights from Newark. The best use case for digital IDs may be for age verification at bars and restaurants, but that only works at select locations — and, funny enough, only with Apple Wallet in my state.
Despite what Google and Apple want you to think, I can guarantee you that your next driver’s license will still be a physical card. Any digital ID in Google Wallet you have will work in so few places that it’s barely any more convenient.
Digital IDs are big for Google Wallet
It’s a focus point for Google, as an exec explained in a January 2024 interview
Source: Google
It’s hard to get governments on board with most big tech projects, let alone 50 different states with their own infrastructure, political goals, and needs to balance. That’s why only a handful of U.S. states support digital IDs years after the concept was first introduced by Apple and Google. To this day, Google Wallet only supports IDs in three other states besides Arizona: Colorado, Georgia, and Maryland.
But that should change soon. Earlier this year, Dong Min Kim — the product management director for Google Wallet — spoke to American Banker about Google’s plans for the app in 2024. “We want to create a wallet that will make people feel comfortable leaving their physical wallet at home,” said Kim in the January interview. Kim added that there is “a pipeline” of states that will support digital IDs in Google Wallet this year. Surprisingly, we haven’t heard much more about this in the months since the news broke. If the company is still working with this timeline, more Google Wallet users can expect to see the digital ID option in the app soon, as long as their state is willing to play ball with Google.
However, the future Google sees for digital IDs in Wallet is optimistic at best. Nothing about the way digital IDs and driver’s licenses have been implemented so far signals that we’re even close to leaving our physical wallets at home.
It’s intended for the airport, which doesn’t make any sense
Your boarding pass is already on your phone — adding ID would only slow the process
I take exception to the main proposition of digital IDs in Google Wallet as they currently stand, which is time-saving and worry-free identification at the airport. As someone who travels frequently by air, if adding an Arizona license to Google Wallet would save me time getting through TSA at the Phoenix airport, I would do it. But it won’t, and there’s a very simple reason why. I use a digital boarding pass with either Google Wallet or Apple Wallet, depending on the phone I’m using. It’s physically impossible to have your digital ID and your digital boarding pass pulled up on your Android phone at the same time.
If you’ve traveled by air in the U.S. before, you can probably recall a TSA officer yelling at people in the security line to make sure their IDs and boarding passes are out before reaching the front. Right now, I scan my physical ID card or passport and my digital boarding pass, and I’m through security. Using both a digital driver’s license and a digital boarding pass would slow down TSA checkpoints and probably aggravate everyone involved.
And if you aren’t convinced that IDs in Google Wallet are a bad idea for airports, this might sway you. For starters, only about 30 airports in the U.S. accept digital IDs at TSA checkpoints. That might sound like a lot, but there are over 500 airports in the country offering commercial flights. Plus, you still have to carry a physical ID, according to the TSA.
Currently, all passengers must continue to have their physical IDs on hand. If a digital ID cannot be verified at the TSA security checkpoint, a passenger must use an acceptable physical identity document (e.g., driver’s license, passport) to proceed through the identity verification process.
So, there are a few major strikes against digital IDs at airports here. They’ll arguably slow down the security screening process, they’ll only work at select airports, and you’ll still need to carry your physical ID. If these are all true, what’s the point of having a Google Wallet ID at all?
At present, digital IDs are useless
You still need to carry your physical card, so what’s the point?
Source: Google
There isn’t a single situation where digital IDs in Google Wallet just works. They kind of work in airports, and they might someday work in bars and restaurants. They don’t work for driving, or anywhere else a form of state ID is required. To be clear, none of this is the fault of Google. For this whole thing to work, it needs to get 50 state governments and the federal government (by way of the TSA) to agree. That’s a lot of red tape to get through.
It’s interesting how much effort Google is putting into a Google Wallet feature that relies on so many forces outside the company’s control. After seeing digital IDs in action for months, I’m not convinced they’re useful now or will be in the near future. At the end of the day, what’s the point of using Google Wallet for an ID when you’re legally required to carry a card anyway?