Google is working to bring digital identity support to Android
Good-bye to the wallet? Google’s intention in the near future is precisely this, and we will only need an Android smartphone in which we will find our digital identity. The problem to be solved will be security.
The NFC on our smartphones has started to change things in the world of payments; thanks to Google Pay and Apple Pay it is possible to always carry your money with you and pay through these applications as if our phone were a normal card. Can we forget our wallet at home? Still not, we always need the documents at hand because they have not yet been digitized.
There are already apps to which we give our information, but they are not recognized as real identity documents. Another disadvantage of these apps is that, with the phone unloaded, we can no longer access our data.
Google wants to provide an alternative to this; the company is working on an ” Identity Credential ” structure on Android devices that allows us to enclose all our information on our smartphone (identity card, driving license, etc.).
What will make this application different from those already existing will be the management of our digital identity, entrusted to a specially designed hardware? This new component will allow us to access our data even from a downloaded phone, without causing problems in the various situations in which it is required to have documents with us.
The main problem with this new ” Identity Credential ” will be security, Google will have to be able to meet the ISO standards necessary for ID protection like this in the digital format; the APIs will also need to be able to support sending credentials securely via NFC.
Google aims to develop this new system not for the next Android release, namely Android Q, but for the one after we see it in 2020. Before then we are still forced to walk around with the wallet.
