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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

I use Apple Pay quite a lot and I'm looking forward to vaccination record support in iOS 15. But I don't think I have a use case for this. If I did, it would be my choice; I don't particularly like do not need to unlock, show, or hand over their device to present their ID.

Still I'm ok with Apple providing this feature, but I have to find a use case before I'd use it. And I don't like its opt-in once, broadcast thereafter approach.

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It doesn't exactly 'broadcast' your ID, physical proximity to your phone is still needed. It's like adding a loyalty card, etc. to apple wallet where you can just tap your device to the reader.

I'm hoping it's like Apple Pay, where I choose and authorize with Face ID + button. It shouldn't be passively readable. Anyways, it will be awhile before it applies in California. CA DMV is not an early adopter of this.

According to the announcement, that's exactly how it works. It uses the same functions as Apple Pay, Transit Passes, and Rewards cards to authenticate/authorize and then uses the new digital ID standard to present.

That's what they said about RFID until it was broken, and people starting building hardware that could snoop on it from a backpack several meters away.

What part of that don't you like? You'd still need to authenticate your device no matter how you present it. You just don't have to unlock the device to validate your ID. It would work exactly like Apple Pay.

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