Jack Tame: Digital wallets and IDs - think of the convenience

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

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1d ago 4:33

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I hate carrying my wallet.

Not because I’m a prickle pockets —I swear I’ll always buy my round!— but because at heart, I’m an optimiser. I don’t want something else to remember, a bulge in my back pocket. I want to be able to do everything with the least baggage possible.

My wallet has four cards. Just four. Bank card, credit card, driver’s license, and my TVNZ access card. Until two weeks ago, I needed a card to get into the Newstalk ZB offices as well, but not anymore. We’ve moved to a digital swipe system, an app on our phones. Very 2025.

I don’t carry cash. My wallet has nowhere to put it. Except for the $2.40 in change in the centre console of the family Corolla, I don’t have any cash whatsoever. I barely use my physical debit and credit cards; I just pay for everything with my phone.

For the best price I still need a real card for the bus, although they’ve recently changed the system so that in a pinch I can pay with my phone. My library card is digital. Concert tickets are digital. Auckland FC, Air New Zealand – it’s all on my phone.

If all goes well with the Government’s rollout, in a few months we should be able to access digital driver’s licenses. In the US they’ve now gone one step further. As of this week, American citizens with either Google or Apple phones can upload their passports to their devices and store them in digital wallets. The systems scan your passport and then read the little chip. They compare the photo page with a biometric scan of your face. You can use it as ID for domestic travel and although you still need a physical passport for international flights, surely it won’t be long until your digital ID does that too.

I know what you’re thinking. Digital passports, bank cards, driver’s licenses. Digital swipe cards for getting into the office. What could possibly go wrong?!

And I agree with you! The more that our vital ID and payment systems go digital, the more vulnerable many of these systems might be to failure, power outages, coding errors, or hacking.

At least for the near future, there will be traditional options. They’re not scrapping plastic driver’s licences just yet.

But all things being equal, I reckon 2026 might be the last year of my life in which I actually need to carry a wallet. I’m going to be first in line for a digital driver’s licence. A year from now, everything I need from my cards I should be able to do my phone.

And while I know there are risks, I know it’s a single point of failure, I know it’ll be even more of a disaster if I accidentally lose my phone. Truthfully my concerns are drowned out by an even stronger impulse. Sure, there are security concerns.

But man, just think of the convenience.

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