Smartphones have replaced many devices over the years, from cell phones to cameras to MP3 players, and they don’t stop at the contents of your wallet either: Google has been working on bringing driver’s licenses and other identification documents to smartphones for a long time and is about to take the next big step with Android 13. Now there is new information.
With Google Pay, credit cards and customer cards can be saved on the smartphone and accessed at any time. Functionally, this should also be possible with ID documents in the future, with Google concentrating on the driver’s license in the first step (which has been in preparation for years). Of course, such an ID document requires a completely different security environment than the credit card, so there are high demands on the hardware.
The driver’s license data must be in a protected hardware area that meets several conditions: Other software must not be able to access or manipulate it. It must be a separate chip that can release the data via NFC even when the smartphone is switched off. Google is creating the new IC HAL standard with Android 13, which governments and authorities around the world are recommended to use, because of course they mainly have to support the whole thing.
The substructure and the process are quite complicated and also have requirements for the smartphone manufacturers. It will probably be several years before digital ID documents on smartphones can offer a full replacement for physical ones. Many technical details can be found in the source at Esper.