Ah yes, this is a great way to turn “Can I see your driver’s license?” into “Can you hand me your unlocked phone so I can rifle through it?” at a traffic stop.
Yes, it’s more convenient than having a separate card, and it may serve as a great backup in case your physical card is lost or damaged. But please don’t use this as your only driver’s license, especially if you are an often-targeted demographic.
“Californians can now carry driver’s licenses on their phone as part of pilot program”
This means you must completely unlock an iPhone to reveal the ID. If they used Apple Wallet, it would require authentication to open Apple Wallet to reveal the ID, then authentication AGAIN to unlock to phone beyond the wallet.
@com@drahardja@DataDrivenMD
I find it hard to believe that Apple designers, ethicists, and engineers are not aware of this user journey for the product.
@drahardja@paninid@com@DataDrivenMD Wouldn’t it be great if there there was a Show in Lock Screen” setting in each Apple Wallet item? The Lock Screen could display them without having to unlock the phone. Until something like that happens, it’s plain old physical driver license.
Police shouldn’t be given exclusivity to this kind of “progress.”
@jonhendry Yes, for sure! All I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be your only ID, and that you should always hand a physical ID when being interrogated by a police officer, to avoid voluntarily surrendering your phone’s content to them.
@drahardja@jonhendry Apple Wallet ID should work without unlocking the phone. Looks like they've developed their own app though, which is a shame.
In the UK, you don’t need to carry your ID to drive. If you’re stopped by police, you can just give your name and address and they can look it up. Seems like a much simpler solution.
@joeldrapper@drahardja@jonhendry U S. cops want as many opportunities as possible to charge you with breaking the law, to use as leverage or as intimidation.
@drahardja Time for isolated software partions in phones to allow scanning of tickets, licenses and other things but strongly block access to protected personal data, especially without a warrant, and also log and report any attempts to access it. Capabilities that will separate a good OS from a mediocre one.
@bouriquet A pretty good form of this already exists in Apple and Google Wallet, where a second biometric confirmation is needed to access the rest of the phone, but the app doesn’t use it.
Although Face ID is pretty weak if the cop can simply point the phone at your face to unlock it.
@drahardja As great as it is to see government embracing technology, I would only participate if accessing the ID immediately locked the phone and disabled biometric access.
A much better idea would be for the cops to also have an app. Then, you could transfer your digital ID via NFC/BT/QR code/etc.
You could make it so the cop's app authenticates with your app so you know they are who they say they are and document their name and badge number automatically.
This way, you don't have to hand over your phone and still don't have to carry the card around.
You could even have a feedback system allowing citizens to rate their interaction with the cops.
Bars and other places will eventually get tapped into it and could be used for this as well.
Bonus feature; be able to perform administrative tasks like renewing your license or updating your address. Streamlining this process would save a lot of money and time.
@drahardja we have these in South Australia, and although it is in a separate app, it has a shake function that shows the current date and time in the photo to verify it isn't a screenshot, and it has a barcode that can be scanned to bring it up on the officers phone without having to hand it over.
Now that I actually drive I also keep my physical license in my car, but prior to that I was fine carrying just my phone and no wallet.
@drahardja I like this in concept, but we need an app that absolutely locks anyone out of the phone while these documents are displayed, and locks the phone onto video and audio recording mode as well.
@drahardja The state/county I live in has a similar thing where the app provides a QR Code for the cop to scan. In practice I'm sure it would act out like "I need to take this to the car because I don't have a scanner in my hand. No? Are you resisting, citizen?"
@drahardja We have had that here for years. You can present a QR code on the drivers license app for the police to verify. No handing over of the phone required.
@drahardja
the phone-rifling opportunities is why they'll move to making having your license on a phone required as soon as they think it's normalized enough. Really, everyone would be better off if no one cooperated with this horrid idea. Everyone who benefits from it will do so at the cost of endangering others.
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