Germans can now put their driver's license onto their iPhone

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German Wallet App
German Wallet App (Image credit: iPhone Ticker)

What you need to know

  • German drivers can now put their licenses into the new ID Wallet app on their iPhone.
  • Setting everything up is a case of scanning an NFC card to get started.

Germans can now add their driver's license to their iPhone, removing the need to have their plastic card with them. The move is made possible thanks to an updated ID Wallet app.

First spotted by iPhone Ticker, the move needs iPhone users to be running the ID Wallet app version 1.6 or later. They'll also nee dto be using a card that has been "activated."

Via machine translation:

To check whether the online function of your identity card is already activated, you can use the iPhone ID CardApp2 application. After the NFC scan of your own identity card, this indicates whether NFC is activated and supported, whether the iPhone recognizes the ID card, whether it is ready for use and whether the online function is already activated.If the check is positive, then you can start the "ID Wallet" application next.

The report also notes that the app will take users through the configuration process, getting them up and running in no time. A full replica of the plastic driver's license will be added to the ID Wallet app once the process is complete.

The updated ID Wallet app comes a day before Apple's new iPhone 13 goes on sale and it's likely Germans will want to put their new licenses into their new iPhones sooner rather than later. Germans can download the required app from the App Store right now.

Apple's new iPhone will go on sale tomorrow following a week-long pre-order process. It'll be the best iPhone lineup yet and is already proving popular if delivery waiting times are any indication.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.