iPhone 6
After letting you open your car with a digital key, Apple is planning to upgrade iPhones with technology that would replace physical documents such as library cards, driver's licenses, passports and other documents used for verification. There have been a series of various patent applications that have been submitted, all with the name ‘Providing Verified Claims of User Identity', reports AppleInsider.
All these patents describe a specific method on how the user could record and transmit their ID and have it confirmed, although Apple did not really mention the word iPhone even once. Instead, the company refers that it could be any piece of technology.
"A device implementing a system for using a verified claim of identity includes at least one processor configured to receive a verified claim including information to identify a user of a device," reads one such application.
"The verified claim being signed by a server based on verification of the information by an identity verification provider separate from the server, the verified claim being specific to the device," the application said.
According to the patent documents, a user will be able to use his or her iPhone to transmit an ID, and if the user is verified, say by the Apple Watch biometrics, the ID would be confirmed.
However, the applications were mainly for passports, but the company has also detailed that it could be used for other identification cards like driver's license. Earlier, Apple has worked on secure ways of presenting government ID, and it has worked with both German and UK governments to help local identification projects.
Luxury automobile manufacturer BMW this week announced that its BMW Connected app for iPhone and Apple Watch has been updated with support for digital key.
