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Hey there, listeners. It's Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech.
Arizona becomes the first state where you can add your driver's license or your state identification card directly to your iPhone. Apple announced on Wednesday that Arizona is the first state to offer residents this option, where you can add your license or your ID directly to your wallet app. I write about this in a story that you can read on tech.USAtoday.com. The biggest use case for this is now, travelers who have their driver's license or their state ID on their iPhone can go to select transportation security administration checkpoints, at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and check in. So, here's how it'll work.
Basically, what you do is if you have it on your phone, you go up to, basically, a digital reader. It works like when you tap for Apple Pay. You go to this reader, you tap your phone, the phone will pull up your license. It'll say, "This is what the TSA wants to see." You agree to it, and then the TSA sees all your information. You also have to have a photo taken as well, because it's similar to the process where, when you go check out with TSA, say at the airport, and you hand your ID, they look at you. They look at the ID.
Similar process, the idea being that nobody's there. So, they're taking your picture. They're seeing the info on your phone, and then you go through and process it. Obviously, multiple states are going to be doing this. Apple announced on Wednesday that Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, Ohio, and Puerto Rico will join the list of states that they already announced. There were seven others that they announced last September when they first talked about this feature. That was Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah. So, if you have an iPhone 8 or later, or if you have an Apple Watch 4 or later, this feature will work.
Because obviously, this is Apple's way of you turning your phone into a wallet. We've already seen with apple pay, you put your credit cards on there. Now, you'll do your license. Now, you'll have stuff like your car key, your house key. Everything is on your phone. I'm still leery of that. That just feels like a lot of stuff on one device. But again, Apple says it's encrypted. Apple said it's very secure. I'm still a little leery, but anyway, that's for another time. And I've talked about this before on previous podcasts.
But I really want to see what other use cases develop as a result of having your driver's license or state ID on your iPhone. What happens when it comes to law enforcement, for example? Say you get pulled over for speeding. Is the police officer going to have a reader and you can just have your phone, and he sees your driver's license? How does that all work?
I think right now, it's really hard to see what the full volume of uses you can get out of this outside of it's great for if you fly. But beyond that is where I really want to know how this feature is going to benefit anyone who owns an iPhone and wants to add their driver's license to their iPhone.
You can read more about this feature and keep up with all our coverage related to Apple, Google, whichever tech company you love, by going to tech.USAtoday.com. Listeners, let's hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, show ideas? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter, @brettmolina23.
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