This morning I was attending a NIST webinar on mobile driver’s license use at financial institutions, and began looking at the services I could access in April 2026 with my California mobile driver’s license—financial and otherwise.
Of course I already knew that I could use my California mDL at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at Ontario International Airport. In fact, the mDL in my Apple Wallet (obtained in 2024) recorded the fact that I used my mDL at the airport on August 31, 2025.
But today I learned that some services are NOT available with the mDL in my Apple Wallet, but ONLY while using the “CA DMV Wallet” app.
So I downloaded the app, which I last used in my initial unsuccessful attempt to obtain an mDL. (I finally used Apple’s facility to get one.) I assumed that since I already had my mDL in my Apple Wallet, it would automatically show up in the app.
You know what happens when you assume. My buddy Google Gemini pointed it out to me.
“It’s a common point of confusion, but the Apple Wallet and the CA DMV Wallet app are actually two separate “containers” for your digital ID. Because California uses a secure, decentralized system, your mDL doesn’t automatically sync between them. Even if it’s already in your Apple Wallet, you have to go through a separate enrollment process to “provision” it into the DMV’s official app.”
Which meant that I had to enroll again and get another decentralized mDL, which I did. (After some difficulty; it took four separate attempts to capture my facial image, which was only successful when I went into a very dark room.)
Now that my mDL is in this second wallet, I could go ahead an enroll in the TruAge program for age verification at a private retailer.
As I type this, TruAge hasn’t processed my application.
And now for a word from our sponsor
Mobile driver’s licenses are a digital form of “something you have,” which is a factor of identity verification and authentication.
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