These New Updates Make Google Wallet a Lot More Useful
Google’s never-ending changes to Google Wallet are undoubtedly some of the handiest we’ve seen, and the company recently announced that it’s adding more ways for people to digitize their other cards and passes, making Wallet a convenient one-stop app for IDs and more.
Starting soon, Google says that it’ll begin beta testing a new way for users to create and store a digital ID, which will now with US passports. The new ID pass apparently works at select TSA checkpoints, and users will be able to do this simply by selecting an option within the app to create an ID pass with their US passport, with included selfie verification.
Google adds that it’s looking into more ways to allow people to use their digital IDs for identity verification and account recovery, for example. Additionally, people with an Iowa, New Mexico or Ohio state-issued ID will soon be able to save their ID in the Wallet app, and Google will be expanding the feature to more locations. For example, Colorado is launching a new reader within the MyColorado app to let businesses accept digital IDs.
Commuters in the U.S. can also add prepaid commuter benefit cards to Google Wallet, starting with Edenred and HealthEquity. Users in more regions can now save their public transport tickets to Wallet, which will soon arrive for iPASS Card users in Taiwan and more Octopus Card users in Hong Kong.
Other features include automatically importing tickets from booking confirmations sent to Gmail, and users will soon be able to view live train status updates from their ticket in Wallet to check for upcoming rides and delays. Finally, the app now supports notifications when a pass changes or gets a message. Users can also access passes from via wallet.google.com.
Source: Google