During today's WWDC21 keynote, Apple Wallet and Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey introduced a new Digital ID feature coming to iOS 15 this fall that's a part of a much larger Apple project. Below is a video snippet from her keynote segment talking about bringing Digital Driver Licenses to Apple Wallet. Over time Digital ID will extend to Passports and more.  

In September 2020 Patently Apple posted a patent application report titled "Apple Patent Reveals a Developing Security ID System tied to a National Database to assist Brick and Mortar Merchants & more. The patent revealed that the U.S. Patent Office had filed a series of six patent applications covering various aspects of the same project of creating a national ID System for driver's licenses and beyond.

More specifically, Apple noted in their patent filing that "The subject system provides for authenticating a user's physical ID with an identity provider (e.g., an issuer of the ID) to create an electronic ID for a given service or domain of services. During an enrollment phase, the user's device captures image(s) of the ID (e.g., a driver's license, passport, or the like) and sends the image(s) to an issuer of the ID (e.g., an agency that issued the ID, such as an agency that issues driver's licenses), and/or a third party verification service that is capable of verifying the authenticity of the ID.

New Patent Figures: Apple's patent FIG. 5 below illustrates an example of different image data that may be used in authenticating an ID; FIG. 6 illustrates an example of security features and user information that may be included on an ID; and finally, FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram of an example process for authenticating an ID in accordance with one or more implementations.

In October 2020 we posted another Apple patent report titled " A new Apple Patent Reveals yet another Dimension to their Gigantic Security ID Credentials System In-the-Works." And in April 2021 we posted a report on this again titled "An Apple Patent reveals a developing user authentication framework covering Digital ID, Driver License and ePassport.

With Apple introducing this for iOS 15, this project and its many patents become fulfilled. Another aspect of technology revealed without rumor sites ever knowing of its existence.