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Is Proof of Age the Next Step for Apple’s Mobile ID?

December 14, 2022

A newly published patent application from Apple offers a hint about the tech giant’s bold ambitions for its mobile ID solution. In addition to letting iPhone users confirm their identities with the virtual ID in interactions with government officials, Apple may also want it to be accepted as proof of age in retail stores.

Apple first announced plans to let customers store a virtual version of their driver’s license or state ID in their iPhones in June of 2021. The system itself, however, didn’t go live until March of this year, when it made its debut in Arizona. Suddenly, Arizonans could not only create virtual versions of their ID, but could actually use the virtual credentials as proof of identity when proceeding through TSA screening at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

In the interim, however, Apple had posted an intriguing update to the “ID cards” section of its iOS 15 page. ““Add your driver’s license or state ID to Wallet for use when you travel and, in the future, at retailers and venues,” it said.

That update came in late November of 2021 – just a couple of months after the patent filing that has now come to light. Titled ‘Digital Identification Credential User Interfaces’, the patent lists well over a dozen inventors, and is wide-ranging in its scope. As Patently Apple notes, the filing is largely concerned with detailing a liveness check system, particularly as used in the enrolment process for a digital ID credential, with some references to selfie image comparisons and prompts asking users to perform certain gestures.

That roughly describes the robust enrolment system that Apple ended up putting in place for its mobile ID system. But perhaps the most notable element of the patent filing is the description of a real-world use case for the ID at “a store called Liquor Store”, where the user is asked to produce identification determining that they are over the age of 21. And the patent shows how the digital ID can be used to present a binary answer confirming (or denying) that the user is of age, without having to present any further biographical information.

This is actually a similar approach to the one that Apple has used for identity verification using its mobile ID at airports, in collaboration with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Rather than presenting the virtual ID itself (via the iPhone’s display) so that a TSA agent can read over its biographical information, the user presents their device to a specialized terminal that wirelessly reads the virtual ID and confirms that the ID holder is who they claim to be. It’s a process in which identity is confirmed through a binary yes-or-no answer while protecting the user’s privacy.

At the time of writing, this functionality is only in place at a handful of airports – the one in Phoenix, and at Denver International Airport after the launch of Apple’s mobile ID in Colorado, as well as Maryland’s Baltimore-Washington International Marshall and Reagan National airports, though in the latter two cases interested users must also be registered with TSA PreCheck. It has been rolling out at its own pace, with government stakeholder negotiations undoubtedly taking up a considerable amount of time.

Still, the ‘Liquor Store’ use case detailed in Apple’s patent filing points to what might come next for the company’s ambitious mobile ID program. And given the remarkable cooperation Apple has attained with the TSA, it’s very plausible to imagine Apple’s mobile ID being used as proof of age in select states in the near future.

Sources: Patently Apple, USPTO

Filed Under: Industry News Tagged With: Apple, Apple patents, digital ID, digital identity, MDL, mobile driver's license, Mobile ID, mobile identity, patent filings, TSA, virtual driver's license

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