Apple Launches 'Digital ID' Feature Nationwide in the United States
This week, Apple released a new Digital ID feature for United States passport-holders. To add a Digital ID to Apple Wallet, users will scan the passport photo page, then use their iPhone to read the RFID chip at the back of their passport book. Then Apple makes you take a live selfie with recorded head movements to verify your identity against the passport.
This feature will initially be available at certain TSA checkpoints for domestic air travel:
Digital ID acceptance will roll out first in beta at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 airports in the U.S. for in-person identity verification during domestic travel, with additional Digital ID acceptance use cases to come in the future.
However, in-app guidance already states that this Digital ID will be available for age verification and identity verification "in apps, online, and in stores."
Apple Wallet's Digital ID functionality has already been available in 12 U.S. states and Puerto Rico through their digital driver's licenses. This new option is meant for anyone in the U.S. who doesn't live in a state with digital driver's licenses or don't have a REAL ID.
It's important to note that this is a "Digital ID" and not a "Digital Passport." While a passport is used as the source of truth for identity verification, this does not replace your physical passport and cannot be used for digital travel.
Digital IDs & Censorship
The proliferation of Digital IDs is a key part of enforcing government censorship through "age verification" and similar legal mandates. While Apple's solution is far better than most existing solutions which require uploading photos of your ID to random third-party service providers, this technology will still be used to gate access to harmless information on the internet.
When it becomes mandated to scan your digital ID to access resources that are purely knowledge, like Wikipedia, as opposed to purchasing age-restricted products like alcohol, this creates a power imbalance where governments can block people from accessing wide swaths of the internet by denying the issuance of passports or Digital IDs to certain groups of people.
When talking about age verification, most assume this only applies to obvious pornographic content. However, many of these laws have much wider reach.
For example, the Australian law prohibits access to social media altogether for anyone under the age of 16. This means that, once the law comes into full effect after its transitional period, anyone who uses social media in Australia will have to prove they are older than this age. It is likely that all Australian users will have to provide some form of identifying data to continue using their social media accounts. This is a privacy nightmare.
When laws target specific content, definition of what is appropriate and what isn't is often too broad. Moreover, this definition is subject to change from one administration to another.
There are also wide differences from one country to another. For example, some countries sadly consider simple discussions of gender identity or sexual orientation to be sensitive content. What is deemed inappropriate to children in one culture might not be the same in another.
Em
As [the EFF has] said repeatedly, there’s no such thing as “safe” age verification. Every approach—whether it’s facial or biometric scans, government ID uploads, or behavioral or account analysis—creates new privacy, security, and expressive harms.
Molly Buckley
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